Old Friends

This week I got an unexpected communication from my best friend through high-school. Although Jon was my Best Man at my wedding, and I still think of him as a best friend, we rarely see each other, and anyone who knows me knows how bad I am at keeping in touch, even with the people I really care about.

Jon, it seems, has been secretly reading Jan's and my blog without leaving comments. So he knows (roughly) what I've been up to even if I didn't know what he has been up to.

And what he has been up to, apparently, is a trip to Europe (again). Lucky bugger.

I also checked an old-and-rarely-used e-mail address and found a newsletter from another friend of the slightly less old variety. My former room-mate Zachary and his wife Robin are living in Texas. The last time I spoke to Zachary about his plans for the future he was hoping to go back to Africa and pursue self-sustainable farming. It seems that they are starting the journey to Africa in Texas, doing an internship with WHR and gaining some experience that will help them live out their dream. Awesome!

Meanwhile I'm still in Winnipeg and I'm surprised how happy I am about that. I'd love to tour Europe and I really admire Zachary and Robin for their dreams, but I like where I am today. Working with the youth at St. Margaret's is unbelievably rewarding—repeatedly surprisingly rewarding. And I'm loving my life as a graduate student. I'm taking nothing but English classes, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Heehee

The Edge to Bono: I don't want to be on the news. YOU want to be on the news.

Via Chris

Harry Potter and It Was All a Dream

The seventh Harry Potter book is rumoured to be completed, except for editing and a title. Here's the text in its entirety:

Harry Potter woke up.

"I had the strangest dream!" he said. "I dreamed that I was a wizard, and the world was full of magic!"

"Oh sweetie" said his mother. "There's no such thing as magic.

OR IS THERE!?!?!?"

The End.

Classy

I'm taking five courses this semester:

History of Critical Theory
Should prove to be very interesting. So far we've talked about Plato's and Aristotle's thoughts on literature, its purpose and its use. The prof is the kind of atheist whose opinion is based on ignorance, but he does know what he's talking about with critical theory, so that's good.

Medieval Lit: Heroes and Heroines
Really good class. It starts with Bede and ends with Malory. Some of the texts I've already read, but it's still a great experience. The prof is hilarious, and really knows his stuff, and likes correcting the translation in our text. He is prone to randomly breaking into Latin or Greek or Old English or French.

Victorian Lit
A pretty good course, but I think it's the dud of the year. The material is interesting, and the prof is pretty good, but it's aimed a little low (I think it's actually a second-year course). Regardless, I'm reading stuff like Tennyson and Browning, which is cool.

American Literature since 1900
I've never really studied American literature, so this is mostly new for me. Which is cool. All kind of people I've heard of but never read. The prof is a very nice fellow (I haven't yet heard him tell anyone that they are wrong), very enthusiastic about his subject, and very likable.

Hybridity and Literary Imagination
An honors seminar that is proving very interesting. The prof is a published author and poet, who teaches creative writing courses and is very interested in the Metis. The course is focused on hybrid race culture and language. We're reading novels, books of poetry, memoirs, essays, rants and reflections. I mentioned it here.

I don't believe in Atheists

I don't believe in atheists.

Sure, I know there are plenty of people who claim to have had a personal experience with atheism, but I just don't buy it. I think they're just expressing their own personal need to disbelieve in something.

Scientifically, it is impossible to prove non-existence. That means that, from a scientific perspective, you actually can't prove that there aren't elves living in my apartment. All you can do is offer counter-examples—you've never found any elves. At the best, a scientific enquiry can convince us that it is very unlikely that there are elves in my apartment.

The logical reason for this rule against proving a nonexistence is simple. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean its not there. To use a slightly less fantastic example: Herman Melville was convinced that the "Blue Whale" was a myth, and that the sperm whale was undoubtedly the largest creature on earth. He had never seen a blue whale. Many scientists of his day agreed with him. Yet blue whales do exist. Likewise, logically, scientifically, the fact that I have never seen an elf does not mean that they aren't here. Even if there was absolutely no evidence for the existence of elves, it is not logically possible to rule out the existence completely.

As for God, the same applies. Even if there were no evidence whatsoever for the existence of God, the basic rules of logic say that it is not possible to rule out his existence completely. But there is evidence for God's existence. People may debate the interpretation or the validity of that evidence, but it does exist. The testamony of multitudes beyond counting is evidence. The existence of this world is evidence. The concepts of good and evil, and the fact that human beings understand them, are evidence. There is evidence scattered throughout the universe.

I can accept that this evidence is unconvincing to some people. I can accept agnosticism as a philosophical position. I happen to think that it is an intellectually cowardly position, but I believe it. But atheism is simply not tenable. To say with certainty that no God exists displays either arrogance or ignorance.

And I just don't buy it.

Hybrids, Mongrels and Half-Breeds: Racism in Language

Language carries with it more complexity than many of its speaker are consciously aware of. Those who have devoted themselves to a scholarly study of English are, it may be hoped, more conscious of this than most, but even so tend to underestimate the depth of meaning and the varied emotional associations with the words we use.
We cannot simply accept the term “hybrid” to refer to human beings without some acknowledgement of the history and what we may call the emotional baggage of the word.

Thomas Huxley preferred the term “mongrel” to “hybrid” because he believed that hybrid implied a cross of two different species, but that mongrel was more accurate to refer to mixed types of a single species. In light of the history of the polygenist/monogenist debate on human origins we would perhaps do well to avoid using terms which imply a specific difference among humans. However, to us, “mongrel” is a far more offensive term than “hybrid”, since it firstly is now used almost exclusively to describe dogs and secondly is associated with an idea of unknown, unknowable and therefore somehow disreputable heritage.

It is significant that the second of these negative associations with the term “mongrel” itself reveals some assumed value judgements. Darwin’s legacy is, in part, a conviction of the importance of “good breeding”, and a belief that unknown or unreliable ancestry is itself a negative commentary on a person. In Annette, the Métis Spy, Joseph Collins, describing Little Poplar, comments offhand that he “would not have a dog unless [he] was sure about his pedigree” (Collins, 109). This attitude toward breeding and its application in a description of a human being’s worth is a legacy of Darwin which still remains for us today.
To return to the idea of language and its implied meanings, consider the use of language and the value judgements implicit within the words used to describe racial categories. In Annette, Collins employs a kind of animal nomenclature to the native population, which was common in his time and continues to present itself today.

Terms like “brave” and particularly “squaw”, while within their literal etymology carry no negative connotations (just as “wench” simply means woman, and even “nigger” just comes from the Spanish for “black”) carry associations based on the way they are used. Squaw comes almost directly from the Algonquin word for “woman”, yet as it is used by Collins it carries a particular meaning. “Squaw” is used as “cow” or “sow” or “hen”, it is an animal nomenclature that fundamentally reinforces the otherness and ultimately the inhumanity of native peoples. The native women are not called “women”, because the word “woman” means “white woman”.

The term “half-breed” —used almost exclusively to refer to the Métis in Annette— also carries with it to us —and almost certainly to Collins— a whole series of value judgements. In zoological nomenclature, a breed is a subspecies with viably distinct population. Referring to the Métis as “half-breed” implies that the decomposition thesis (as advanced by Edwards, Thierry, Arnold, Nott and Gliddon) is accurate—that “French” and “Indian” are permanent races, but that the mix of these two races is destined to eventually die out or revert back to one of the original sources. “Half-breed”, as a term, denies any permanence to the Métis.

Language isn't neutral, and it absorbs the associations we bring to it. So words for groups we distain in society come to be insulting words, and are eventually deemed inappropriate for their original use (words like "dumb" and "retard") for example. The problem, then, is twofold. First we must use words that do not carry implied mockery or condemnation, and secondly we must not attach mockery or condemnation to the new words we use.

And in relation to the issue currently at hand, I still wonder. Is my course on "hybridity" poorly named?

Hybridity and Darwin

Conventional wisdom tends to be that Charles Darwin was a clearsighted scientist who overcame the superstitious prejudices of Fundamentalist Creationists. But there were some pretty good reasons why many Christians disliked Darwin and his theories, and history has shown that some bad things have come from Darwinism. But more on that later.

In this post I gave some history of hybridity and European approaches to the idea of human race and how that relates to the definition species.

The central issue between polygenists, who argued that human races were in fact different species with different origins and monogenists, who argued that human races were all a single species with a single origin, became the definition of species. The traditional definition of a species was a group that produced fertile offspring.

Charles Darwin changed that, and one of the results of his theories was to eventually end the polgenist/monogenist debate. Darwin argued that the definition of species was a permiable and mutable. He gave examples of plants and animals traditionally classified as different species which nevertheless produced fertile offspring. It is crucial to Darwin's theory that animals can in fact, through generations, produce a new species. Darwin argued that the polygenist/monogenist argument was insoluble, but essentially irrelevant, since whether different ethnic human groups were classified as species or varieties or races, there was no essential difference between them.

Darwin did, however, beleive that eventually the "lower" forms of man would become extinct, saying that "when civilised nations come into contact wiht barbarians the struggle is short".

Through all this time, the strongest opponant to a polygenist theory of human origins was a Biblical one, the Biblical account of the creation of man (ie Adam and Eve) was (and is) clearly monogenist, and in undermining a Biblical account of creation, Darwinism also undermined a thoery of human racial and ethnic differences that asserted a single origin of human races.

After Darwin, many people chose one of two positions to support their racism: either Darwin's own position that humans shared a common ancestor, and whites were the furthest evolved, while blacks were least removed from apes, or the position that despite their ability to produce fertile offspring this was not sufficient to prove a specific unity (and there was no particular reason under Darwinism why all human being should necessarily gave a common ancestry). Darwin's theories lent scientific credibilty to both of these perspectives.

Darwin did effectively end the debate of poly/monogenists, but only by sidestepping the issue. Eugenics and Nazi race policies were a direct result of Darwinism, and a logical extension of his ideas.

A literal Biblical worldview, carried out with integrity to its completion leaves no room for racism, while Darwinism carried out with integrity to its completion necessitates an idea of racial superiority, as well as all the other evils of eugenics.

Storage Space

The human brain is like a computer. This is not a new insight.

We have long-term memory storage and short-term memory storage, and removable memory storage.

Since the development of writing, much of our information is stored in books, but even before this, the oral tradition functioned as a sort of removable storage. Information was stored inside the heads of poets. The tradition of storing information inside the heads of other people didn't end with the development of literature. To paraphrase my former professor Paul Dyck, new technology doesn't replace old technology, it just makes things more complicated.

I, for example, store a good deal of information inside Jan's brain. Things like what time do we have to be there, and how do we get there, and even what episode of Buffy is that from. And Jan, in exchange, stores information in my head. I ... can't think of what exactly, but I'm sure she does.

Hybridity

The term "hybridity", where it relates to race relations, is a very shaky one.

As some of you may be aware (but until this week I was not) as recently as 1974 there existed a debate as to the natural history of humanity and the origins of race. Simply put, it was suggested that different races were actually different species. Eighteenth century Europeans, when making a hierarchical scale of the animal kingdom separated different races as different species (and predictably placed themselves at the top). There was even some discussion as to whether Africans should be catogorized as being a species of ape.

Hopefully this is absurd enough to be surprising to most of us. The debate between monogenists and polygenists has, as Darwin predicted "die[d] a silent and unobserved death". Yet it did not do so before the end of this century.

"Hybrid", as a word, has a long and complex history. Originally a latin term for the offspring of a wild boar and a tame sow, for most of its history in English it has meant a mix of two different species. The 1828 Webster definition of hybrid was "an animal or plant produced from the mixing of two species". The use of the term hybrid to refer to humans, then, was originally a support of the idea that different races were in fact different species.

Thomas Huxley argued that instead of "hybrid", mixed-race humans should be called "mongrels", since "'mongrels' ... are crosses between distinct races, and 'hybrids' ... are crosses between distinct species." But "mongrel" to us (and frankly, probably to Huxley) has such a strong association with dogs, and such a connotation of unknown and unreputable breeding—as a word it is so loaded with value judgement—that it is a much too insulting term to apply to human beings.

What gradually became significant was the definition of "species". For many, the definition of a species was a group that produced fertile offspring. A mule is infertile, and thus we know that a horse and a donkey, despite their similarities, are indeed different species. So the question was asked, can the races of humanity produce fertile children?

To my modern eyes, this seems an absolutely absurd question, but it was in fact debated with seriousness. Some, like Edward Long attempted the evidentially indefinsable position that different races could not, in fact, produce fertile offspring. Some, like Charles White, denied that fertile offspring was the best definition of species.

Next, Darwin attempts to shed some light on the subject.

Call for Comments

For one of my classes this semester, I have to produce a few short response papers on readings about "hybridity". The course in called "Hybridity and the Literary Imagination", and it focuses on mixed race, mixed culture and mixed languages. The most familiar example of this in Canada is the Metis. The course focues on literature by and about all kinds of neither-one-nor-the-other situations, racial, cultural or linguistic.

I propose to write my first thoughts for this course on this blog. I want to use this blog as something of a sounding board. And that will work best if I get a lot of comments, pointing out flaws in my reasoning, holes in my logic and occasionally points I've made well.

Of course, I always like comments anyway, but when my post concerns "hybridity", I hope the comments will be many.

That is all.

God and Ethics

Periodically, Elliot posts a link to one of the dozens of blogs he reads. To be honest, I usually ignore him.

But sometimes I follow those links. And sometimes I find that the blogger he's linked to is eminently worth reading. So I've been reading Real Live Preacher lately, and I sporadically check in on a few of the other people linked in Elliot's sidebar.

And very recently I've been reading Eve. For those who don't know, Eve is a Catholic and a lesbian who has chosen to be celibate as her way of reconciling her sexuality with her Catholicism. And I like Eve's post here enough that I think I'm going to add her to my sidebar.

Here's a excerpt (with bold added by me):

In order to figure out if something is okay to do, you can't just ask whether people who seem like good upstanding citizens (according to some culture or subculture's definition of "good"!) want to do it. I mean... I know a lot of good upstanding citizens who wouldn't bat an eye if somebody shoved bamboo sticks up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's fingernails. Doesn't make it right to do. Culture can't be the final word on moral truth; nor can individual inclination be the final word. This actually strikes me as one of the stronger arguments that if there is a distinction between right and wrong, it requires a Creator God.

I think she's dead-on.

You Decide

I need to choose between two classes.

At first, I planned to list pros and cons, but I will let you my gentle readers decide what is a pro and what is a con.

Medieval Lit: Heroes and Heroines

The prof is hilarious

The prof is excellent (he won a prestegious teaching award this year)

I really like Medieval lit

I get to read Beowulf

I get to read the Dream of the Rood

I get to read Gawaine and the Green Knight

I've already studied medieval literature, and have previously read many of the required readings

It means my Tuesdays and Thursdays are pretty much solid class from 11:30 until 3:45

The Memoir

I've never taken a course on the memoir, and all of the readings are new to me

The readings look really good

I get to read Maus II

I get to read Miriam Toews' memoir of her father

I have another course with the same prof

It will be more of a discussion course than the other one

It means my Fridays are hell, solid class from 9:30 until 3:20.

First Day

Today I had my first offical day as a graduate student. Some highlights:

My American Lit. Prof: "Don't plagiarize. It's not worth it. It's not worth it. Seriously, it's not worth it. It's... it's just not worth it. You'll get caught, and it's not worth it."

My Medieval Lit. Prof (who speaks with an English accent but is from New Jersey): "You must recongnize the excerpt, so for example if on your exam there is the excerpt 'ALAS!', you will have to tell me where it is from, and who said it..."

Party for new grad. students, with free wine!

There was a debate, and I sided with a Medievalist against a Victorian.

I talked to a woman who's doing her Ph.d on "Japanese animation and cross-cultural influences". Her favourite author is Neil Gaiman. I like these people.

I have an owie

I got stung by a wasp on the tip of my finger.

Stream of Consciousness

Had lunch at CMU today with Steph, Kinsey and Amanda.

It was great seeing Steph again (and K+A, who I don't see nearly as much as I should—considering we live in the same city). She lives in Ontario, and was in Winnipeg very briefly for a working retreat with the MB conference of Canada, for whom she works about quarter time.

What we really need is for her other job to have a conference in Winnipeg. That way she and Laura could BOTH come. And they should stay longer.

Oh well, a lunch was better than nothing.

It sucks that so many of my friends are now scattered to the four winds, and that I sincerely suck at keeping in touch (see above, re: Kinsey and Amanda). To my friends who don't live in Winnipeg: I miss you all and hope to see you all soon.

Jan and I will be in Niagara for Christmas, so perhaps we can manage to see some Ontarians then.

Paul out.

Sniffles

Perelandra, it seems is a sickly sickly cat. Currently, she is suffering from the sniffles.

One of her eyes is watery, and she is sneezing a lot.

According to our dear and glorious leader Google this could be a hereditary disease involving a misformed tear duct, or it could be glaucoma, or it could be an alergy (to food, or to us, or to her own fur). Or it could just be a cold.

We've decided to wait and see if she gets better all by herself.

In the mean time, she is much more affectionate and cuddly than usual. Like any of us, she wants to be held and loved when she is sick. She snuggles up to me when I am sitting down, but instead of trying to play fetch or headbutt me, she just curls up and cuddles. It's actually rather nice. Maybe we should always keep her sick.

Oops

I had a post here a few hours ago talking about my sister's boyfriend, who is an artist. I posted a few of his paintings, but it was pointed out to me that this is copyright infringement, so I took them down. I'm going to ask his permission, and if it is given I'll put them up yet again.

Two Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the two boys, two girls and one woman)

Jan wrote about this, so I'm going to be brief. But...

We went on a canoe trip with the St. Margaret's Youth last weekend. There were seven of us: Jan and myself and Kevin as leaders and four youth, two girls and two boys (names withheld to protect the innocent).

It was a very enjoyable trip. Seven (as those of you with mathematics training will be able to calculate) does not divide evenly into two, so one canoe had an extra person in it. This turned out to be a very good thing, as it gave the tired and weak a chance to rest.

Lowlights:
I brought my camera, but forgot to bring film. No pictures.
The Assiniboine river has NO landmarks. We never knew where we were.
The coyote incident.
I got home tired and kinda burnt.

Highlights:
All four of the youth were awesome.
I think they all bonded a little more with each other.
A fire on the beach.
Swimming in the Assiniboine river.
Everyone listened to the campfire talks.
Everyone participated in the devotions (especially the second day).
Seeing herons and cranes and hawks and (I think) a golden eagle.
Saying "somebody clean these dishes" and watching it actually get done!

Bandaged

Jan's parents gave me a Cutco French Chef Knife for my birthday. It's great, but I have cut myself twice already. They should come with some kind of warning.

Worldwide(web) Search

Check out the St. Margaret's Youth webpage for an ongoing contest. I've been searching the web for good church webpages. That includes everything from anglican.ca to a specific church's youth group webpage. I need help from people throughout the web, so spread the word and contribute your nominations!

Poor little rich kids

Geez magazine has a parody of Make Poverty History—Make Affluence History. I will admit out front that I have a few issues with Geez magazine, with their approach, their philosophy and their mission. This parody exemplifies some of what I think is wrong with Geez and their ilk.

Make affluence history is a clever parody of make poverty history. It raises some important points succesfully shifts my perspective and shatters some assumptions. It is indeed true that the children of wealth need prayer by virtue of their wealth. There is an intention here that I admire. However, the practical result is to allow self-satisfied people to smugly stop supporting the poor in favour of mocking the rich. A parody like this belittles the efforts of people who are doing the work of God--supporting the needy. A parody like this encourages people to stop supporting the poor. It makes the rich—and let's face it, the people writing this parody, the people producing Geez magazine, for all their talk about simplicity are rich in comparison to most of the world simply by virtue of living in Canada and the people viewing the parody are rich in that they have access to the internet; those who practice voluntary simplicity are still rich in that their simplicity is voluntary—feel better about themselves and do less to help the poor.

Bad News

I'm completely out of things to say.

So here's what happened...

After much soul-searching, I decided a while back not to go back to the U of M's faculty of Education. Instead, I applied to the Pre-Master's program with the intention of getting a Master's, and later a PhD in English.

It was Monday June 12th that I decided this, and the deadline for application was Thursday June 15th. My application package needed to include my academic transcripts, two letters of recommendation from previous English professors, a sample of my academic writing, as well as the completed application forms. Jan and I were leaving for a road trip on Tuesday morning. Yikes.

I searched my hard drive frantically for a suitable piece of writing. It's been three years since I was taking undergraduate English classes, and our computer has undergone some drastic internal surgery since then. I didn't have anything I was proud to attach my name to. I contemplated writing a new piece. Then it occured to me that one of my former professors, Sue Sorensen, from whom I took a class on British and Irish Literature, had liked an essay I wrote on T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland so much that she had saved it. Maybe she could forward a copy to the U of M on my behalf?

I called another of my previous English professors, Paul Dyck, and begged for a letter of reference. He told me I could pick it up from his house on Tuesday morning. So Jan and I would stop by the U of M on our way out of town, drop off the letter, pick up the application forms. I could fill them out on the road, and could fax it on Tuesday evening from Jan's parents' place in Saskatoon.

I wrote an e-mail to Sue, begging for a letter of reference from her, and begging her to forward a copy of my T.S. Eliot essay. And finally, to hedge my bets I sent an e-mail to the only other English prof I've ever had, Mark Fortier, from whom I took a class on John Milton. I wasn't even sure if he would even remember me, as I was only one student in a class of 30 four years ago, but I had very much enjoyed the class, and I figured it was worth a try.

We headed west, stopping by the Dyck household and U of M on our way. At casa de Oatway I faxed in my application and faxed U of M and CMU a request to send my transcripts and to put a rush on it. It was Tuesday night, they were due by Thursday, and they claimed it took 2-4 days. If it was 2, I would be fine. If it was 4, I would be too late.

On Wednesday we moved further west, and it was out of my hands.

When we got back in Winnipeg there was a message on my answering machine saying that the English department had received my application and all related materials except my transcripts. They would give me a few days' grace, they said.

And then I heard nothing.

According to the U of M website, graduate students needed to be registered by mid-July.

It was July and I heard nothing.

July came near its end, and still I heard nothing. No rejection letter, but no acceptance letter either.

I called the English chair and asked "Yo! What's the deal?"

They were a little behind on notifying people this year, I was informed. But when I received my acceptance letter I should call to set up an appointment.

August rolled around. Still I heard nothing.

Then, this Thursday I got a letter from the University of Manitoba informing me that I had been accepted into the pre-Master's program.

I'M IN! YAHOO!

No YOU watch too much tv

Chocolate milk doesn't come from brown cows.

A&W doesn't have waiters. And charred tomato coolee sounds good to me.

"Head-On! Apply directly to the BITE ME"

For the rest of my life, I will never ever purchase Gold Bond. That is how annoying their "get the quick fix" commercials are.

United Furnature CRAP HOUSE (bum bum)

More thoughts about Superman

Superman is a Christ-figure. In any incarnation of Superman that is even remotely faithful to the story, Superman is a Christ figure. He can't help it.

I think the recent movie may have laid it on a little thick, as if they expected the viewer not to get it. But it's impossible for anyone familiar with the story of Christ not to associate Superman with Christ on some level, and for those unfamiliar with the story of Christ, it is best to let Superman simply be Superman.

I have heard convincing arguments that Superman is not a Christ figure at all, but rather that (since his creators were Jewish) he is a MOSES figure--arriving in a basket to save his people.

I agree. Superman is a Moses figure. But Moses was a prophetic pre-curser of Jesus. Moses himself is a Christ figure.

Pug wrote a while back about why Jesus isn't a superhero. A lot of what he says is true and a lot of it makes good sense. There are a lot of ways in which Jesus is fundamentally different from any superhero. He didn't wear a cape, he didn't have a secret identity (but he did frequenty instruct people (and demons) not to tell those around him that he was the Messiah (Luke 4:41, Luke 5:14, Mark 8:29-30)). However, any metephor or allusion can be destroyed by focussing on the differences instead of the similarities.

Pug talked mostly about the heroes of the Marvel Universe (and I think most bad things to have ever happened to Superheroes are Stan Lee's fault, but that's another post for another day). Pug contrasts the gospel to Superheroes, saying "The story of the gospels are about fixing what went wrong. Helping people get back to the optimal state of being, in close relationship with God. It is Not the story of some ordinary, talented, but oh, so misunderstood Guy who suddenly discoveres or recieves amazing powers. It is Not the story of a man and his stumbling, and doubting his way towards his own destiny. It is the story of the ultimate sacrifice." And he's mostly right.

But Jesus is more than the suffering servant. That IS a part of Jesus, and without it the story of the gospels would be diminished and Jesus would not be who he is. But Jesus Christ, in addition to being God's son, betrayed and forsaken by the world, is also God, the creator of the universe come in power to overthrow the powers of darkness and bring glorious salvation to this world. Christ is a sacrifice, and it would be both heretical and simply foolish to ignore that. But Christ is also God's coming in glory and power--although neither that glory nor that power looks like we humans expected it to look.

And Superman is a figure of this aspect of Christ. And I think that's pretty cool.

It was looking at me funny.

Stuff sticks to the Web like flies stick to... a web. And I'm... a spider?

Chris has drawn my attention to Ze Frank, and I feel that my life will henceforth be enriched.

Jan likes to put stuff on our cat.

Eric keeps conveying emotions.

Jan and Elliot have both posted about Weirdos of Winnipeg, but I will too.

Diedre doesn't get along with fundamentalists.

Multiple Choice

It's 1:00 in the morning, and it's hotter than:
a)hell.
b)[insert your own Paris Hilton joke here]
c)the Miss Universe Pagent. (but seriously, though, I flipped past, and ribs and hip bones are not attractive)
d)a fox in a forest fire.

(in "hot things" news, check this out!)

I'm hot and sticky and uncomfortable. Also my ankle hurts because:
a)Jan keeps kicking it
b)Perelandra bit me
c)I'm secretly Achilles (post encounter with Paris)
d)I broke it about 10 years ago and never got it set, so it has bothered me on and off ever since.

The upshot of this is that I can't sleep. So instead I'm making a blog post that:
a)is largely incoherent
b)I find funny
c)no one will read
d)all of the above

This made me laugh

Prejudice

Often when I read famous and influencial Christians of the past I am surprised by their compassion and their liberalism.

I don't know why I should be.

On some level I have been convinced by the propeganda of our age, that compassion was invented in the late 20th century, that tolerance is a new idea, that the benighted imbeciles of yesteryear were all barbaric, savage, violent, hateful and narrow-minded compared to the open, accepting, loving folks of today.

I expect eccumenicism to be new.

So I expect people like Neibur and Barth and even Bonhoeffer to be coldly intellectual--theologians removed from the practicalities of everyday life to a formulaic and unforgiving ideology. Instead I find that the practicalities of everyday life are what they all really care about, that what each is primarily concerned with is how to live out God's love to the people around them. And I find that Bonhoeffer took God's love for the people of Germany so seriously that he--in what seems like an act of desparation--abandoned passifism and tried to assasinate Hitler, only to be executed as a traiter to Germany. And I'm surprised.

So I expect John Milton to be legalistic and morally absolutist--"puritanical" if you will. Instead I find him writing about grace, about God's love and the human response to it, about freedom. Even about the doctrine of divorce as a mercy. And I'm surprised.

I expect Augustine to be acetic and repressed, with strange authoritarian leanings. I hear rumours that he invented Just War, that he thought he could force people to be Christians. Instead I find him writing primarily about God's love. I find him arguing passionately that nothing conquers but truth, and the victory of truth is love. And I'm surprised.

And today, I hear Christians condemning each other and the world, I see Christians being bigoted and uncharitable and unloving. I see us giving Jesus a bad name. And then I watch tv and a sappy manipulative commercial for World Vision comes on, and I am about to change the channel when I realize that World Vision is a Christian organization. And so is the Red Cross. And MCC, and the Christian Children's Fund, and it occurs to me that I've never heard of the Atheist's Children's Fund. And I'm surprised.

But I shouldn't be.

Road Rule Rhymes

A Pedestrian's Complaint
The sidewalk is for pedestrians
That's people on their feet
If you are riding a bicycle
Then please ride on the street
It makes me very frustrated
When you ride in the wrong place
Because I don't enjoy it when
People get in my space

A Cyclist's Complaint
The street is made for bicycles
And not only for cars
And if you run me over
You will wind up behind bars
So please make space for bicycles
And give them room to ride
And if there's one in front of you
Move slightly to the side

New York Style: various attempts

For lunch on Monday I attempted a traditional New York Style pizza with pepperoni and mozzerella cheese. It was pretty good, but the crust left something to be desired. I'm getting a lot better at throwing, so it was quite uniform in thickness, and fairly thin, but it was still a bit tough, and it didn't have the big puffy ring of crust New York Style pizza is so known for.

Jan is getting sick of Pizza, so Monday dinner was baked beans and bisquits. Low effort and comforty.

Tuesday for dinner I made a potato pizza with broccoli and green onion. Thin tender crust topped with mashed potato, garlic, broccoli, green onion and mozzerella cheese. Very good.

Wednesday I attempted New York Style pizza again, this time with pepperoni bacon and pineapple. It was very tasty (although it gave Jan heartburn) and the crust was pretty good, but once again it was lacking the puffy ring crust. It ended up being more like a floppy thin-crust pizza than anything else.

For Thursday lunch we wanted tuna fish sandwiches, but had no mayonaise. So I made some. Mayonaise is quite easy to make, but considering the price of oil and vinegar and the relative price of mayonaise it pretty much costs just as much to make your own as to buy it. But if you make it yourself you know exactly what went into it, and you can do things like use balsamic vinegar instead of white (although it makes the end product light brown instead of white) and you can add basil and the mayonaise you end up with is very tasty. Which is what I did. And it was.

For Thursday dinner Jan was still sick of pizza so it was Perogies and a mixed salad with honey-dill dressing.

Friday dinner I tried New York Style crust for a third time, and this time I got it right. To begin with, I used less flour than usual. The dough was quite sticky and a little hard to work with at first, but once I started throwing it, it worked okay. Also, I rolled it out much bigger than the pan, then curled the ends in. I don't know why I didn't think of/realize this before, but of course that's how they make the puffy crust ring. So I ended up with a crust that was fluffy and puffy on the outside, then tapered off to chewy and thin, but not tough and not crispy. It was topped with barbeque sauce, chicken and pineapple, and I really think it was my best pizza yet.

Woohoo!

Thin crust grilled leek and asparagus pizza

The secret to a thin crust, I've been told, is to chill the dough. Accordingly, for today's pizza I made the dough last night, and chilled it overnight in the refrigerator. I pre-heated the oven to nice and hot (450) and took out the dough at the last minute. I tried my hand at throwing and spinning, but with only marginal success. Still, I managed to spread the dough about twice as big as I needed, so I put some aside for later. I ended up with a nice thin crust.

Top with a sauce made from oil, basil, rosemary (which spilled in, so there was too much of it) garlic, sage, parsely and oregano, grilled leek and asparagus, crumbled feta and grated cheddar cheese.

I forgot to pierce the crust with a fork, so there were some bubbles, but on the whole I think it turned out quite well. Easily the thinnest crust I've ever managed, and quite good. Jan thought it a little tough, but she's never been much of a fan of thin crust.

New York Style crust tomorrow.

Deep Dish

Today I tried my hand at Chicago style deep-dish pizza. If I say so myself, it turned out very well. I think this was my best crust yet. I believe that one of my problems in the past has been that I didn't knead the dough for long enough. So today I kneaded for 15 solid minutes until the dough was as smooth as a baby's behind.

It was an old fashioned pepperoni and mozzerella deep dish pizza.

Tomorrow, thin crust.

Asparagus and Tomato Pizza

I have decided that I will start recording for posterity the meals I have cooked. Maybe I'll do this frequently, maybe not. I'm definitely doing it today.

It came to my attention recently that my pizza dough seriously sucks. It's tough and bready, and in all ways inferior. So I have set out to remedy this in the only way I know how. Practice. This means that I'm going to be making a lot of pizza for the next while, until I feel that I have fixed whatever is wrong--be it the recipe, the rising time, the rolling technique. Whatever.

So today I made an Asparagus and Tomato pizza, which if I say so myself was delicious. The crust left something to be desired, but it was definitely better than my usual crust. The toppings were as follows:

Basic white sauce with feta: Butter, flour, milk, feta cheese and a sprinkle of oregano
Asparagus: broken into smallish pieces no bigger than my pinky finger
Tomato: cut into semi-circles
Grated feta cheese
Grated mozzerella cheese

That is all. It was very very tasty.

Paul, Perelandra and P.G. Wodehouse

Room with a view

Or rather... view of our room. Whatever. As promised, here is our new apartment.















Get a guided tour here.

Here we go again

I am often struck by the strange cyclicality of history, philosophy, fashions and technology.

A great example of this phenomenon is in music, where the trends have gravitated between the two poles of ornamentation and simplicy. Medieval music was quite ornate, Renaissance music was not, Baroque music was, Classical music was not, Romantic music was and 20th Century music (for the most part) was not.

Schoenberg's twelve-tone serial music was essentially a revisiting of J.S. Bach's fugues, after re-thinking the idea of tonality. In fact, when aspiring composers came to Shoenberg to learn about his new twelve-tone serial music, he made them practice writing Baroque-style fugues before he would teach them anything about atonal music.

The same cyclicality seems to happen (to greater and lesser degrees) in all kinds of fields, even (though many people are shocked and scandalized by the suggestion) in technology.

I noticed today that pocket watches are starting to replace wristwatches again. They've been re-imagined and re-packaged, but they're quickly regaining currency.

Don't believe me? Ask a few people on the street for the time. I guarantee it will not be long until someone pulls a cell phone from their pocket instead of glancing at their wrist. Cell phones are a re-worked version of pocket watches.

I think that's neat.

Broken

Perelandra has been broken.

It seems like a terrible euphamism to refer to what was done to her as "fixed". She was working fine before. Not anymore. No little kittens for Perelandra.

And now her pupils are enormous and she keeps trying to lick her scar. She's sore and she's sad and she's groggy.

Kitty Kitty

Jan has posted about our new cat, and now it's my turn.

After Jan and I got back from our trip across the country to Annemarie's wedding and to see our new niece, we felt our apartment seemed a little empty.

So we went to the Humane Society and begged them for a kitty.

Her name is Perelandra. She is a small, soft callico who purrs about 85% of the time. While all cats rub their faces against people in order to spread their scent, Perelandra tends more toward a sudden headbutt. She will look me in the face for a few seconds, then *pow* headbutt.

She's cute and nice.

Shushi and Such

I don't believe I've ever posted about this, but I am what Elliot refers to as a "foodie".

I like food. I like to eat it, and I like to cook it. I like to watch the Food Network on television. Particularly, I like Good Eats, the Surreal Gourmet, Chef at Home, and I have just discovered Food Jammers.

I'm not a particularly artistic guy. I can't draw, I can't sculpt, my design skills are seriously lacking. But I can make pretty food sometimes, and tasty food even more often. It's fun to be actually good at something.

Look at the pretty sushi I made!

Life Decisions

I think I may have mentioned my unhappiness with the Faculty of Education.

It's been a hard year for me—educationally. My personal life has been great, and my work this year with the youth at church has been wonderful, but school has been difficult.

The really sad thing is that I loved teaching English during my practicum (although I struggled with what I see as the watering-down of the curriculum). The part where I got to be a teacher was great. The part where I was a student was like being kicked repeatedly in the crotch. I felt actually sick to my stomach when I thought about going back.

So I'm not.

I've applied to the U of M's pre-Master's of English program. It is a one year program that will prepare me to enter a Master's program next year. When I've got my Master's degree, I'm going to get a Ph.D. After that, we'll see. Maybe by then CMU will be hiring another English prof. Maybe I'll just work as a full time youth pastor. Either way, it will be worth it.

I'm excited about school again.

War, what is it good for?

Diedre made a few comments recently about the Iraq war, and the callousness toward human life that seems to be accompanying it.

Al-Zarqawi, a powerful al-Qaeda member and "prince of terror" was killed recently by American forces. Diedre is uncomfortable with what she calls "100% jubilant 0% remorseful" murder. Now it seems that it is worse than we thought. Al-Zarqawi was not killed immediately, as originally reported, but bloodied and tried to run. American forces claim that he died of his injuries soon afterward, but some witnesses claim that the Americans beat him to death. His face was cleaned off before a picture was taken.

This war is vile. Maybe all wars are. I'm not an absolute pacifist in theory, but so far I am a pacifist in practice. I keep hearing stories about this war, about atrocities committed. It makes me sick.

I don't think Americans are somehow worse than other people. I don't think that soldiers are inherently evil. But I do wonder what killing people does to you. I wonder how you can kill people still respect their humanity. And I wonder how you can devalue and dehumanize your opponents without leading directly to atrocities. Maybe it's possible. I'm not sure.

Songs about Superman

It supports my earlier contention that Superman is the greatest of all heroes that there are an awful lot of songs about Superman. No other hero has pervaded the collective conscious to the degree that Superman has. There are many excellent songs about Superman, and far more that aren't strictly about him, but do reference him. A few of my favourites:

Crash Test Dummies: Superman: "Sometimes I despair the world will never see another man like him"

The Flaming Lips: Waitin' for a Superman: "Tell everybody waitin' for Superman that they should try to hold on as best they can. He hasn't dropped them, forgot them or anything. It's just to heavy for Superman to lift."

Johnny "Guitar" Watson: Superman Lover: "I got X-ray vision, and I can see see through steel too babe,I know that something wrong with me, cuz I can't see through you. But they call me the Superman Lover..."

The Kinks: (Wish I could Fly Like) Superman: "I'm too weak, I'm so thin, I'd like to fly but I can't even swim. Superman, Superman, I want to fly like Superman"

And others:
Five For Fighting: Superman
Three Doors Down: Kryptonite
Spin Doctors: Jimmy Olsen's Blues
Eminem: Superman (and references in about ten other songs)
Donovan: Sunshine Superman
Genesis: Land of Confusion

What do you think is the best song about Superman? How many can you add to my list?

A Winnipeg School with some... unorthodox practices

It's just too heavy for Superman to lift

Superman isn't invincible. He has his weaknesses. In fact, Superman's great weakness is probably about as well known as Achilles'.

But when Superman died, it wasn't Kryptonite that did it. When Superman died, it wasn't his tragic flaw, or his great weakness that did him in. Superman died when his strength failed. He just met someone stronger.

There's a lot about the Death of Superman storyline that I didn't like (particularly his re-incarnation as an energy being), but the means of his death is exactly right. Kryptonite may make Superman weak, but to actually kill him with it would seriously impovrish the story. From a mythic standpoint, Superman can't die because of his weakness or because he fails somehow. Superman is not a literary tragic hero. When he dies, it is simply because he finds something too strong for him—too heavy for him to lift.

Look, up in the sky!

Soon there will be a new movie about Superman. The trailers give me shivers.

Partly, it is the use of the original John Williams music—and Superman (along with Star Wars) is John Williams at his very best, emotionally evocative almost to the degree of being propoganda, but just short of being manipulative (as Williams tends toward at his worst). Even with my eyes closed, the sounds of the Superman Returns teaser trailer gives me goose bumps.

But there's more to it than that. Superheros play an important role in our mythic landscape. And of all the comic book superheros, Superman is undoubtedly the greatest.

I don't want to get into one of those Superman vs Batman vs Spiderman vs Wolverine vs Green Lantern vs Plastic Man vs Ghost Rider vs Silver Surfer who is the best superhero ever debates. Although I do find that kind of thing fun sometimes, what I'm trying to get at now is not that Superman is the best superhero in the sense of who would win in a fight, or even of who is the most fun to read stories about.

Superman is almost certainly the most iconic and culturally the richest of superheros, with the most depth of influence upon culture as a whole, who resonates most deeply and fully with the human condition and with our yearning for salvation. And Superman fills a cultural, narrative, mythic niche which is not filled by any of the other major¹ superheros.

Batman and Spiderman are both examples (in very different ways) of humanity saving itself. They are models for us, who demonstrate the heights to which humanity can rise. They give us hope in ourselves. Superman, at the heart of his story, exemplifies something quite different. Superman is not one of us. Clark Kent is the costume, and Superman is the real him. He is alien, not merely in the sense that he is from another planet (and I think the best presentations of Superman downplay the sci-fi little-green-man extraterrestrial alien connection) but in that he is outside our experience².

Superman is help from beyond. And as such he is a Christ-figure in a very different way than, say, Spiderman is. Spiderman is a Christ-figure in that he is a man who suffers for his fellow men. Superman is more closely analagous to a God who descends to dwell among us for our salvation. Neither, clearly, is a full metephor for Christ (and I would suggest that the only story that adequately captures the complexity of Christ's function is the story found in the Gospels), but each represents different aspects of a human need for salvation³.

It's been five years since the United States experienced an attack which shook it to its foundations and fundamentally altered dominant worldview of its culture. In the second trailer for Superman Returns, there is a clip of Superman saving a plane. Superman flies out of the blue and keeps an airplane from crashing. It occurs to me that the past five years have seen a re-emergence of the superhero movie. It occurs to me that it is about time Superman returned.



1 I know that there are examples (like J'onn J'onzz the Martian Manhunter) of superheroes who are, like Superman, alien in one sense or another, but as I have said I'm mostly concerned here with the level of cultural impact. I've never heard any songs about the Martian Manhunter.

2 Yes, a guy who can stick to walls, a guy with blades that come out of his hands, a woman who can control the weather are also outside our experience, but what I'm talking about is not the power but the origin. Other superheros (including mutants) are fundamentally human, however altered. Superman is not one of us.

3 This need is shown in all of human storytelling, in all myth. So why do we call it "Christ-figure", when clearly some of the stories predate Jesus of Nazareth? C.S. Lewis once said that in Christ myth was made fact, just as God was made flesh. Only in Christ do we find the myth fully realized and also made fact.

New Apartment

Well, we've moved.

We have left our big sunny corner apartment in the heart of Osborne Village for a slightly smaller sunny corner apartment a short walk from downtown.

Our new place is a little smaller than our old place, but it feels bigger to me.

Hardwood floors, new appliances, a buzzer at the door, and a fake fireplace all add up to sweet sweet digs.

Monday Webcomics

It's Monday, and that means that there is a new comic up at the St. Margaret's youth webpage. This week, it is courtesy of Elliot gave me a new "Paul and Jan" comic.

While we're on the subject of webcomics, Sinfest has had a few quite interesting and funny comics lately, and Sam and Fuzzy has been one of my favourites for a while now.

I swear I'm not making this up

My mother visited Winnipeg for a few days recently, on her way home from visiting her new granddaughter.

It was nice to see her, and it was nice to be able to show her our life.

One of the things she wanted to do while she was here was take a walk through the Winnipeg Art Gallery. So we went, on Wednesday evening. We got to the WAG at 8:00, and it closed at 9. We decided that it was still worth taking a walk through, even if it was only for an hour. My mom talked the clerk into giving us all student rates, since our visit was going to be so short. So far, so good.

We decided that we would start at the top, and work our way down. So we went to the roof, to look at the sculpture garden. Honestly, it was a little disappointing. We walked around for a bit, but the sculptures were actually few and far between, so we decided to move down to the Gallery level, to look at some paintings.

The door wouldn't open.

This must be a mistake. I thought. We must be pulling instead of pushing, or something. So we pulled, and pushed, and twisted, and banged on the walls. Nothing. The door was securely locked. We were trapped on the roof of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. The walls were high, the fall was long, and my mother is not as young as she once was. We couldn't jump off. We found the fire exit, and peered through the door at what we guessed was our best hope: a long dimly lit staircase behind the gallery. At each floor we tried the door, but to no avail. Our situation had not improved in any measurable way. We were now trapped in a stairway instead of on a roof. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, we found a door with a sign which informed us that an alarm would sound if the door were opened, and the fire department would be called. We considered our options. It was 8:30 by this time, and we knew that if the fire department was called, we would see no art. If, on the other hand, we could find a way out without sounding an alarm, at least we would still get half an hour of gallery touring.

I left my wife and mother trapped together in a stairwell and ran back to the roof to give one last ditch effort on every door I could find. I found the door to a restaurant on the top floor of the WAG, and found to my delight that it was unlocked.

As I opened the door I heard a strange beeping sound. And then a loud wailing sound. The door was not locked, but it did have an alarm, and instead of the fire department, the police were now on their way. I hurried down to the front desk, and told the clerk and the security officer:

"We were on the roof in the sculpture garden, and the doors were locked. My wife and mother are now trapped together in a fire escape, and when I opened the only door I found unlocked, an alarm started to go off."

It took a bit of explaining to make it clear that there were two issues that required immediate attention. 1) The alarm, and the police would soon be responding to it, and 2) My wife and mother trapped in fire escape.

The security guard took me back to the roof, disabled the alarm, and followed me back down the fire escape to where Jan and my mom were waiting in silent hope.

We got out, and my mother expressed her disatisfaction to the clerk, who gave us some free family passes!

Anyone want to check out the Marvel Comics exibit with us?

I think she looks like Yoda

As promised, I have pictures of my new niece.













She's adorable. I can't wait to see her in person!

Say hello to Freda Margaret Hope.

Jews and Judaism

I'm reading a book called The Gospel According to Moses. So far it is quite good. It's simultaniously a defence of Christianity in the light of the Jewish Scriptures, a defence of Judaism to Christians, and an attempt at building fellowship between Christians and Jews.

Some historical Christians have claimed that in failing to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the Jews have lost their special place in God's favour, but Jesus himself said "everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven." (Luke 12:10) Jews, who do not acknowledge Jesus but who DO acknowledge the Holy Spirit of God have clearly and explicitly NOT lost their place with God. The Apostle Paul says "All Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob'" (Romans 11:26)

I have become convinced lately that most Christians (at least, myself and most of the Christians I know) are insufficiently knowledgable and insufficiently respectful of Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. Christianity is Jewish. Although it is true (as the apostle Paul repeatedly points out) that Christians believe that through Jesus the law has been fulfilled, and God's grace has been extended to all people, and that the cultural trappings of Judaism are not necessary for salvation, yet it is also true that the roots of Christianity are in Judaism, that the God Christians worship in the Jewish God, that the promises of God to his chosen people have not been anulled simply because they have been widened, and that Christians impovrish ourselves spiritually by ignoring the vast depth of Jewish commentary, thought, insight, tradition and faith.

So for myself, I intend to study the Talmud, the history of Israel and try to learn about God from Judaism. I think it will make me a better Christian.

Check it Out!

New comic at the St. Margaret's Youth webpage, and a promise of new comics every Monday.

This is what I get for caring

The Ottawa Senators have been eliminated by the Buffalo Sabres.

Boo.

Comments are Necessary

Who would win in a fight, Plastic Man, or Elongated Man (or Mr. Fantastic)?

Graffiti as Conversation

Sometimes the graffiti in Winnipeg is purely destructive, like spraypainted squiggles on a snowbank (yes, it has happened). Sometimes it is bizarre and mysterious, like "Murder Capital" and "Stand Tall", and "Baby Mama" stenciled around the city. Sometimes it is affirming and even sweet, like the various "I love you"s found throughout the city, not to mention "Forgive Her". Sometimes it is worth quoting for months, like "Sam Katz Eats Babies".

I like it when it is a conversation. There is a bus stop on the walk from church to home where someone wrote "Hang Dykes", and someone else wrote "... and homophobes." Although I can't say I approve of violence, it's neat to see conversations carried out anonymously, over months.

There's a traffic box that had "Happy is a choice" written on it for months. Eventually someone wrote "Directions please" underneath it. A few weeks after that, a third person added directions to the nearest church.

I think that's cool.

Sam Katz eats babies.

With my Own Two Hands

I can change the world
With my own two hands
I can make it a better place
With my own two hands
Make it a kinder place
With my own two hands
With my own, with my own two hands.

I can make peace on earth
With my own two hands
I can clean up the earth
With my own two hands
I can reach out to you
With my own two hands
With my own, with my own to hands

I'm gonna make it a brighter place
With my own two hands
I'm gonna make it a safer place
With my own two hands
I'm gonna help the human race
With my own two hands
With my own, with my own two hands

I can hold you
With my own two hands
I can comfort you
With my own two hands
But you've got to use
Use your own two hands
Use your own, use your own two hands
-Ben Harper

Shhhh

Cathy tells me: "You know that whole thing women say about how childbirth is so painful? Lies. It was a snap. She just popped right out. But don't spread that around. We have to keep the secret."

Does posting it on my blog count as spreading it around? I'll ask her.

News

I got a phone call today.

My sister Cathy had her baby.

My new niece is named "Freida". She was eight pounds, and had lots of black hair. I'll post a picture when I get one, but just for comparison, here's the "before" picture.

You learn something new every day

I made an announcement in church today.

After the service, someone came up to Jan and said "I didn't know Paul was funny!"

That was totally intense

Friday was the first Ottawa/Buffalo game of this series. It was crazy. Both teams were scoring like it was going out of style. It ended up 7/6 for Buffalo, a few seconds into overtime. Wow.

I'm sad that Ottawa is down by one game, but still. That was a pretty freaking impressive game.

What's up in the Blogosphere?

After a brief hiatus on account of moving, AMP has returned to the land of the blogging.

Jan's not having fun searching for a new home, and neither am I.

Elliot gets a comeuppance, and responds with maturity and humility.

Chris has trouble imagining his next trip to Mexico, after certain Mexican laws are changed.

And Diedre is sick. As she tells is in more detail than I cared to know. Why oh why didn't I heed her disclaimer?

Best of Winnipeg

Uptown Magazine's latest issue has a supplement which lists the best of Winnipeg, according to Uptown's readers. It's a pretty comprehensive list. Jan and I both voted back when the survey was being given out, firstly because we occasionally read uptown (it's FREE!), and secondly because we both love surveys (the Canada Census was VERY exciting).

Some of the winners were pretty predictable (529 Wellington as Best Fine Dining) and some were downright shocking (The Keg as third Best Fine Dining?). I have a few bones to pick.

Tim Hortons won Best Coffee Shop, just narrowly edging out The Fyxx. Now I know Tim Hortons is a Canadian icon, a Canadian institution, a Canadian hallmark. And maybe their coffee is good (I'm not really much for coffee). And maybe some of their baked goods are still delicious (although I'm pretty cheesed that they've stopped cooking their donuts fresh). But seriously, the service sucks. Their staff are almost as surly and clueless as Superstore's. The Fyxx is also Canadian. I'll do you one better--it's a Winnipeg-owned chain! They serve good coffee (even I like it) and the staff don't look like their managers torture them whenever no one is looking.

Smitty's won Best Wings, beating out Carlos and Murphy's. I remember Smitty's being called something that rhymes with its name. Carlos and Murphy's have the best wings I've ever tasted.

Best Used Bookstore went to Red River. Ugh. That place gets my vote for worst used bookstore in Winnipeg. Okay, it wins points for being big. But it's terribly organized, the books are stacked to the ceiling so that you can't even take then out half of the time, the staff are rude and don't know what they stock, the owner is ruder, and it FULL of PORN! They probably have more porn than all their other books combined. Yech.

I'm not even exaggerating.

I think that it is literally the coldest day in the history of Winnipeg. Jan and I walked home from Portage, and it was freezing. I think I'm literally frozen solid. I literally can't remember ever being this cold. Ever.

Is this really all there is?

The Internet is a disappointment, frankly.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for a honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
-W.B. Yeats

I don't know how this happened

Jan and I have been watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

We didn't mean to. It just... happened. It all started by flipping to an Ottawa game during the commercials of... something. I don't remember what now.

I was born in Ottawa. I grew up there (for a while at least). I like Ottawa. And Ottawa was doing well. I found myself interested in the outcome of the game. When Ottawa looked like they were going to score, I was happy, and when Tampa Bay looked like they were going to score, I was sad.

Why the heck does Tampa Bay have a hockey team anyway? Nothing against Tampa, my mom is from Tampa, but seriously! They don't even have snow there!

The Senators WIPED THE FLOOR with the Lightning. It was 4 to 1. I looked up how the other Canadian teams were doing, and Montreal is also in the playoffs, and so are Edmonton and Calgary. And then I actually made a point of watching the next game. And the next one. And the next one.

Tonight I came in to a Detroit/Edmonton game in the third period, and the Oilers were down by two. It looked bad, but then the Oilers pulled it out from nowhere to come away with a 4-3 win, and moving on to the semi-finals. It was tense, and we CHEERED when the Oilers got that fourth goal.

So I'm watching hockey. And I'm rooting for Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton and Calgary. In that order. I just had to get that off my chest.

I hab a code

My throat is sore and my nose is interchangeably running or stuffed and my head feels like it has been packed full of rags which have been soaking in old milk.

I feel sick.

Evangelicals and Mennonites and Anglicans (oh my)!

Elliot and Diedre have both posted recently about Mennonites and Evangelicals, and it got me thinking.

I met Jeremiah on the bus recently. He had some things to say about the Church—about where it is going and where it has been.

Jeremiah is in his late fifties. He’s missing a few teeth, and his breath is unpleasant. His grammar is flawed and his logic is questionable. He’s in love with Jesus. As we rode the bus together, he told me earnestly about the Anglican church, and how it is failing in its mandate to witness to the world. He told me about a preacher he knew who believed in miracles and preached about life-changing faith. He told me about God's work in the church.

I've spent a lot of time in the past few years with people who would call themselves intellectuals. CMU was my church when I first came to Winnipeg, and it has constituted almost my entire experience with Mennonites. Through CMU, I gained a lot of respect for the Mennonite church. At CMU I found people who took their faith seriously, who thought deeply about the challenges of Christian faith, and about how we should live in light of that faith. I found people who argued passionately a Christian ecological stewardship of this earth. I found people who for intelligent and complex reasons were convinced that God calls us to make peace in every way, and that as Christians pacifism is a necessity.

I also found people for whom "Was Hitler redeemable?" and "Is an American soldier redeemable?" are questions of equivalent difficulty, and the strong instinctive answer to both is "no". I found people who look down their noses at "stupid fundamentalists", who exhibit a hostility which is difficult to call by any name other than hatred for people who take the Bible literally. I was introduced to a two churches (MB and MC Canada) with so much hostility for each other that I was surprised that they had any left for the rest of the world. But they did. I found people who, in between statements on pacifism and reconciliation breathed venom for the Billy Graham and divided their own churches. I found people who would have utter disdain for Jeremiah and his kind of Christianity.

My church now is St. Margaret's Anglican. It contitutes most of my experience with the Anglican church. In the Anglican church I found people with a love of the sacramental mysteries, who feel that there is more in heaven and on earth than is dreamt of on our philosophy. I found people with a deep respect for the symbolism of the church. I found a church that produces art and literature. I found a litergy with generations worth of insight and wisdom written into it, and a church structure that is carefully and intelligently designed to be meaningful on more levels than we may be aware of. At St. Margaret's I found preaching of a kind I'd never experienced before, intellectually challenging and engaging. David quotes the Bible and Barth and Luther and Augustine and Plato and Bonhoffer, and other people I would never have heard of at the AGC church I grew up in. People whose names I probably still wouldn't recognize if I hadn't been to CMU for four years. At St. Margaret's I found people who engage their faith on an intellectual level, and who truely try to love the Lord their God with all thier mind.

And I've found a church that teaches (implicitly, mind you) that education improves a person's worth. I've found a church where intellectual posturing and condescention are par for the course. I've found people who genuinely believe that if you haven't read Barth's dogmatics then you are failing in your mandate as a Christian. I've found people who are sure that our salvation lies in our ability to think through theological problems. I've found people with utter disdain for fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. St. Margaret's allows itself to be evangelical in theory by thinking of themselves as smart evangelicals, and behind our smiles we laugh at the stupid people who think that the world was created in seven days.

But Christ does not teach smug satisfaction. Christ teaches love. Jesus was much harder on the intellectual elite than he was on the uneducated. And demononational rivalry is the great shame of the Christian church. We are one body. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists also serve in the body of Christ.

Theology is important. An intellectual engagement with God and with his Christ is important. Pacifism and social conciousness is important. But all this is not the Gospel, and no one will be saved by their theology, or by their works. Salvation comes from God, not from us.

Both Mennonites and Anglicans have failed and continue to fail. As do Fundamentalists and Baptists and Presyterians and Pentacostals. This doensn't make them hypocrates, though. It is possible to believe in something and still fail to live up to it. It's called "sin", and it's what we should expect.

And salvation comes from God. It comes for Mennonites and for Anglicans. It came for Jeremiah, and it comes for me.

Halleluia

Superstore

In Jan's recent post of ten things she likes and ten things she doesn't, she mentions Superstore.

I thought I would add my voice of disapproval. Superstore is a place of pain and suffering. If Dante were writing in contemporary Winnipeg, he would base one of the circles of hell on Superstore.

Let's, just for the moment, overlook the fact that Superstore has carts three feet wide and aisles three feet-two-inches wide. Let's forgive them for having an organizing scheme which was obviously designed by someone with less that a second-grade education, on hallucinogenic drugs, while having a stroke, and being beaten around the head with a shovel—producing a store where chicken broth is found in four different places, and cocoa is found nowhere. Let's pretend that we don't mind that the staff stand in the middle of the tiny aisles with their giant carts and discuss video games, and that if you ask them where to findavocadoss they look at you with a blank expression as if you inventing words. The real unpleasantness of Superstore is that everyone there—customers and staff alike—are in a foul, confrontational, angry mood. You can't even pull into the parking lot without being honked at. People in Superstore cut each other off, scowl at each other, snap at each other, roll their eyes at each other, and I can only assume, occasionally break into actual violence. I've never witnessed Superstore violence myself, because I do everything I can to avoid setting foot there, but it seems reasonable to assume, given the general mood, that it erupts from time to time. That place is a powder-keg.

We went shopping there the other day, and once we got there we realized that the carts take a loonie, and all we had was four quarters. So I went to the service desk to ask for a loonie. She told me that the service people were naccustomedmed to providing any actual SERVICE to customers, and sent me to the greeter. The greeter stood unnecessarily close to me and told me that he didn't give change. He sent me to the service desk. The service desk woman give me my loonie, but seemed mightily annoyed by it. I walked past the greeter, loonie in hand, and he stopped me, keeping me from leaving the store to walk deep into the parking lot where the carts are kept (because why would they do anything so silly as keepicartsrts in the store?). "Do you need change?" he asked me. It took all my self restraint to keep from stabbing him in the eye, and then kicking him in the crotch while he was distracted. Less than a minute into my Superstore trip, and I was contemplating violence. And everyone knows what a pacifist I am.

Secret of the Easy Yoke

I could hear the church bells ringing
They pealed aloud your praise
The members' faces were smiling
With their hands outstretched to shake
It's true, they did not move me
My heart was cold and tired
Their perfect smiles annoyed me
I could not find you anywhere

Would someone please tell me the story
Of sinner ransomed from the fall
I still have never seen you
And some days I don't love you at all

The devoted were wearing bracelets
To remind them why they came
Some concrete motivation
When the abstract could not do the same
But if all that's left is duty
I'm falling on my sword
At least then, I would not serve
An unseen, distant Lord

Would someone please tell me the story
Of sinner ransomed from the fall
I still have never seen you
And some days I don't love you at all

If this is only a test,
I hope that I'm passing
Cause I'm losing steam
But I still want to trust you

Peace, be still
Peace, be still
-Pedro the Lion

Holy Week

This post is really a continuation of this post, (and this one, actually) if anyone cares.

As other people have mentioned, Holy Saturday is a confusing time for the church. My own thoughts on the subject are mostly covered at the end of my first post on Holy Week. I think that there is a terrible tendancy to undermine the solemnity of Holy Saturday and to skip it. It is the whole point, the whole appeal, and the whole power of holy days and festivals that they have a discrete beginning. We cannot, during Holy Saturday, truly forget that we know the story of the resurrection, but we can pretend. And we can respect the sanctity of Easter by waiting until Easter is truly upon us to celebrate.

Jan and I went to two Holy Saturday Easter Vigils. Both were excellent services, but I think neither were sufficiently respectful of the day. More on that later.

The first service was at 5:00pm. It began in darkness in the basement, as candles were lit from a new fire. It was an Easter Vigil, and it was a service of confirmation. Five people were confirmed. Confirmation is a public affirmation of commitment to God, a renewal and personal claiming of the promises made at baptism. It was very exciting. The service itself was joyful and energetic, with more contemporary music than is usual at St. Margaret's. It was a nice change, although I found that the congregation wasn't quite sure how to react to upbeat, uptempo music. The bishop and David tried to get people clapping, but without much success.

The evening service was darker and more sombre. It was also an Easter Vigil, with a service of confirmation. The service was held in darkness, as we waited for the rising of the Lord. When the bishop said "Alleluia, Christ is risen!" and we replied "The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia" the lights came on in the sanctuary, and it was followed by a singing of Alleluia. It was quite powerful and quite moving.

Both services were excellent. However, the first service was overly joyful for early evening of Holy Saturday. In prempted the rising of Jesus, and celebrated the resurrection while we should still be waiting. The second service was much more appropriate, but it also jumped the gun a little by celebrating the resurrection at about 11:00. Although I can understand the practical reasons why this wasn't the case, I think that ideally an Easter Vigil should celebrate the resurrection at midnight, when it is Sunday. It also adds weight to the Alleluia if the church has followed the tradition of not using the word alleluia at all during lent.

These objections are relatively minor. Happily, the Anglican church has a whole season of Lent to prepare and to wait so as to strengthen, underscore and emphasise the joyful celebration of Easter. It does seem a little unfortunate to jump the gun, however, even by a few hours.

The Easter Sunrise service was beautiful (and comparatively short), and the 10:30 Easter Morning service was completely joyful and exuberant, and included a great sermon by David on (of all things) Jesus' death and resurrection. In a harmony with other intelligent people, he talked about the fact and the fiction of Jesus' death and resurrection. Jan summed it up this way:

Jesus was dead, to begin with, there is no doubt whatever about that. Jesus was as dead as a door-nail. There is no doubt that Jesus was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

Jesus's death is indisputable, and the religious leaders were afraid that his disciples would steal the body. But theft was the second least likely thing to happen to that body. The Romans could have posted a blind little girl as a guard and it wouldn't have mattered, because the disciples lacked the stomach, the will, the foresight and the intelligence to steal Jesus' body.

Of course THE least likely thing to happen to that body did happen. Jesus rose from the dead. The guards were not there to keep disciples out, but to keep Jesus in. And the Romans could have posted the entire Roman army as a guard and it wouldn't have mattered, because no power on this earth could have kept Jesus in that tomb, separated from his world.

Jesus really was dead. And he really did rise. No tricks. No fraud.

And now Lent is over. Our preparation has ended, and the firstfruit has come. Our mourning is over and it is time for joy. Our fasting is over and now is the time of great feasting. The debt has been erased, the ransom has been paid up in full, death has been robbed of its victory and we are assured of life everlasting.

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Christ is Risen

He is risen indeed. Alleluiah!

Churchy churchy church church

So.

It is Holy Week.

This is the time of year when I am most glad to be in a Liturgical church. So far I have attended four services this week. I will likely attend two today, and three tomorrow. And that's exactly how I want it.

St. Margaret's does Holy Week very, very well.

Thursday was Maundy Thursday. Maundy Thursday is a commemoration of the day when Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper. It is the day when Jesus was arrested and handed over to those who would kill him. It is the day he was abandoned by his disciples.

The Bishop of Rupert's Land was at St. Margaret's, and he washed the feet of some people who are being confirmed. In this way, the Bishop renewed his own service of God by serving his church. In this way, the Bishop acted out his discipleship by imitating Christ.

Our rector David gave an excellent sermon about excommunication, in which he made the point that excommunication is the Bishop's responsibility, because to those who do not discern the body of Christ, communion can be fatal. On Maundy Thursday, when Christ instituted his communion, we would do well to remember that while it is a holy sacrament open to all, it is a holy sacrament, and should not be done lightly. The torturer cannot share communion with the tortured. The oppressor shares communion with the oppressed to his own peril. And the Bishop must remove communion from the oppressor, lest communion be turned into a sword.

At the end of the service, the all the clergy and lay-leaders removed their albs surpicles and stoles, and left the Lord's Supper on the alter. They abandoned the body of Christ, abandoned their office, and left, and the church was made dark. From the back of the church, Psalm 22 was sung, and the altar was slowly stripped, piece by piece. The cross was covered with a dark shroud.

Yesterday at the morning Good Friday service, they were still not wearing their albs, but only a black cassock. The service was excellent, with the best choral music I have heard this year, three excellent meditations by David, and the passion according to the Gospel of John read in full. David's meditations were on the problem of evil, and a Christian response. Christians, says David, cannot ever make peace with evil. We cannot explain evil philosophically to say that it was in some way necessary. We cannot argue that darkness is needed to understand light. The Bible does not support such arguments. Darkness is not necessary for light to exist. Evil is not necessary for good to exist. The Bible offers no philosophical explanation of evil. What the Bible does offer evil is opposition. In Christ, the Bible offers us hope. In the cross we have a God who suffers with us, and in the ressurection we have triumph over evil. Good never had a beginning, and will never have an end, but evil did have a beginning, and it will have an end. Amen.

In the afternoon, Jan and I helped lead a walk through the Passion for families. It was very tangable and tactile, and in the end much more meaningful and moving than I expected it to be. We followed Jesus into a tomb, and then followed him out again.

Then Jan and I skipped the evening Good Friday service to go to have supper at the Olive Garden—which is our Good Friday tradition.

And now it is Holy Saturday. Jesus is dead and buried, and today we wait. We wait in mournful sadness, and we wait in joyful anticipation, but our joy does not overcome our sorrow yet. Though we know that Sunday is coming, and we cannot pretend that we don't—though we cannot help but see the crucifiction in the light of the resurection, and therefore is it a Good Friday—yet it is not Sunday yet. But soon.

Soon.

Life as a Clown

Life is strange.

The eccentricities of my life and past are so familiar to me that they have mostly stopped being surprising. I don't even bother to tell people, because on some level I assume that they know. But life keeps moving on, and I keep meeting new people who don't know my stories. And one day I look up and I discover that even my very close friends don't know things about me that are pretty basic, just because it has never come up.

I worked for several years as a professional clown. I haven't done it in a full-time way for a few years, but there was a time when that was my job. I made enough money to pay for a trip to Mexico. I made enough to pay for my first year of university.

When I was in high school, my older brother got a job as a clown on the street. He was hired by a florist to stand in a clown costume, wave at traffic and draw attention to their store. He had applied for a job as a cashier, but they were hiring for a clown, and since he knew how to juggle he thought it might be fun. He was miserable. I used to go visit him every day to keep him company. I would ride my bicycle down to his work with my roller blades in my back pack, and then he would ride my bike home, towing me on my roller blades. It was fun.

I was there almost every day, and the owner of the florist got to know me, and when my brother left for university, she offered me the job instead. I couldn't juggle, or do anything clown-like. What the heck. I thought. I don't NEED the money, so if I hate it I will quit and it won't matter.

I spent eight hours a day, five days a week that summer practicing my juggling. By the end of the summer, I was very good. I could juggle balls, clubs, rings, knives and torches. I could do tricks like under the leg, behind the back. I could juggle one handed, I could eat an apple while juggling it. I was very good.

My parents bought me a unicycle for my birthday, and I taught myself to ride it. I made myself a pair of stilts, I taught myself to make balloon animals, and I started to get bored with interacting only with traffic.

And somehow people started to get my phone number. I never advertised, but I would get phone calls asking me to do parties or special events. I had a blast. I spent months developing my propless clowning, until I was fairly sure I could spend a few hours happily walking around a party without any juggling balls or balloons and could still be funny and fun. I practiced storytelling, and developed a few clown skits.

I don't do much clowning anymore, but I would like to. Maybe I'll try to get a busking license this summer, and see what I can do.

Diamond Ring

You said that you would not love me last summer
And you said that you would not love me last spring
But I thought that I could change your mind by autumn
Especially when I bought that diamond ring

But you still said No
You would not have me
You still said No, No, No

I heard that you've been sleeping with your old friends
And I heard when each one left it broke your heart
I told you then that I would never leave you
And I told you that I loved you from the start

But you still said No
You would not have me
You still said No, No, No

Even though you haven't any answers
You still think that you don't need anyone
To save you from the mess that you've created
And even when I sent my only son

You still said No
You would not have me
You still said No, No, No
-Pedro the Lion

Pedegogical Efficiency

I am back at the university. Yay.

My first class on Tuesday was Psychology of Learning, which has been one of the better classes this year. The prof told us that he was going to be going away for a few weeks, and couldn't get anyone to replace him, so the next two classes were cancelled. Then he decided that we would be done a week earlier than the syllibus indicated. Then he let us out an hour early.

And then try to tell me that this class is even remotely useful. That what we are doing is valuable. And this is typical of the faculty of education. My second class of Tuesday remains a mystery to me. I still cannot tell you what it is about, and I cannot name a single thing I have learned.

Gah. Get me out. Make it over. I just want to teach!