What? Amparo was here and I missed her AGAIN!?

I am currently reading Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

It was originally written in Italian, but since I don't read Italian it has been kindly translated into English. It's quite good so far.

There is a (minor) character named "Amparo", which since it is Italian I assume is pronounced something like "Am-PAH-roh". But every time I read it I pronounce it in my head as "AMP-a-ROO".

Good News, and More Good News

I got a letter in the mail yesterday from the University of Manitoba, with a list of M.A. courses I can choose from for next year. And then I looked up my U of M online account, and found that my official status is now written as "Grad Student, M.A.", where it used to say "Special Student, Extended Education". So it looks like I'm still accepted.

Now I need to decide how many courses I'm going to take next year. I need to take a total of 18 credit hours complete a Master's, which means six courses. I had originally planned to take most of my coursework sooner rather than later, but since we're going to have a brand new baby in September, maybe it's better to do a lighter course load at first. But on the other hand, Jan will be home at first, so maybe it's better to do heavier coursework early, before she goes back to work at the liberry. Decisions, decisions.

In other news, I went off to a job interview today, for a place that installs and repairs swimming pools. They're looking for someone to work full time, but only for the summer, which seems just about perfect. The interview consisted basically of him telling me about the job, asking if I had any questions, and then asking if I could be in by 8am tomorrow morning. To which I said that I could. So I am officially employed, and expect 40+ hours a week. Woohoo!

More on Clowning

Yesterday I performed at the third of four libraries I'm booked for this Spring Break.

My library shows have included juggling and general buffoonary, as well as two stories: The Three Little Pigs, and Moby Dick.

Lots of fun, and I think it has gone better every time. Only one more to go.

Have Clown Shoes, Will Juggle

To supplement my income, I've been looking for some work as a clown.

This coming week I'm doing some shows for the Winnipeg Public Library, which I'm very excited about, and I've printed business cards to hand out both there and at a clowning supply shop here in Winnipeg. Finally, I've got a new website designed to drum up a little business.

Check it out!

Palm Sunday

My favourite time of the year is about to begin.

All of Lent is really a preparation for Easter. Starting with Ash Wednesday, we begin the slow walk toward the cross. This year Jan and I spent Ash Wednesday at Holy Trinity Church in Winnipeg, because we were flying in the evening, and St. Margaret's didn't have a morning service. So we spent most of the day with ashen crosses on our foreheads, reminding each other, and maybe other people who saw us of the eventual imminence of the cross--of God's death, and of our own eventual death: "remember, O man/woman that dust you are and to dust you will return".

Throughout Lent we prepare ourselves for Easter, by penitence and fasting, by confession and absolution. We give things up. Part of the effect of this is to increase the anticipation of the feast season of Easter. We count down the days until our fast is ended.

This Sunday was Palm Sunday, and the journey to Golgatha has begun in earnest. On Palm Sunday we celebrate Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He comes into the city with cheers and the waving of palm leaves. We commemorate this with palm leaves and palm crosses. The crosses are made from the palm leaves--Jesus' death is made by the instruments of his triumph. And the crowd chanting hosanna is the same crowd that will soon be chanting "crucify".

After Palm Sunday the palm leaves are burned and the ashes are saved to be used in next year's Ash Wednesday.

At the evening service, we had a service of the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. The service revolved around Haydn's instrumental piece, which was played by a string quartet. The seven last words are:

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).
Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43).
Woman, behold your son: behold your mother (John 19:26-27).
Eli Eli lema sabachthani? ("My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34).
I thirst (John 19:28).
It is finished (John 19:30).
Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (Luke 23:46).

Each bible reading was followed by a movement from Haydn's piece, and three of them were then followed by a meditation from the pulpit.

David spoke about "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do". For most of our lives we do not know what we are doing. In our ignorance, we are active--as the mob was active in its ignorance crucifying Jesus; and Jesus, though knowing, was passive.

Bonnie spoke on "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Christ wails into the darkness--a literal darkness as an eclipse covers the earth, and an existential darkness like the original chaos. All hope of dawn is on a cross.

And finally David spoke on "It is finished." In creation God saw on the sixth day all that he had made, and saw that it was finished. It was finished, but it was not over. The work was finished, and God rested. So on Friday Jesus' work is finished, and on Saturday he rests. The first creation is finished on Friday. Whatever we were doing in our ignorance is finished on Friday. On Saturday all of creation rests, awaiting the new creation on Sunday morning.

Amen.

Dear Paul,

I am delighted to inform you that the Department of English has completed the review of University of Manitoba Graduate applicants for September 2008 entry and has forwarded your application to the Faculty of Graduate Studies recommending acceptance to the Masters program in English.

Blah blah blah. Other stuff.

Best wishes,
The Graduate Chair of U of M.

That seems about right.

13

Victory!

I have tried before, but always failed. Sometimes it seemed like it was going to succeed, but in the end there was only disappointment. Sometimes it was obvious from the beginning that it was a failure. But this time, I had high hopes and they have been realized!

I made ginger ale. I made it myself, from water and yeast and sugar and ginger, and it tastes good and is fizzy. It is a complete and overwhelming success! Huzzah!

Disturbing

The newest Tickle-me-Elmo doll has secret moves. In order to advertise this doll without giving away the secret, Fisher-Price has decided to make probably the most disturbing, obscene commercial I have ever seen. Enjoy!

Barmizvah Brothers

The Barmitzvah Brothers, from Guelf Ontario, are neither Jewish nor are they related. But don't hold that against them. The trio's newest album, Let's Express our Motives, is "An Album of Under-appreciated Jobs", and features songs like "Bookbinder", "Library Page", "Thrift Store Owner" and my favourite of the moment, "Piano Tuner".

He's there on a bicycle
And there on his feet
You can see his wide bell out there on the street,
he claims its not a business but a dedication:
fifteen years and gratification.

Always a musician, he played the clarinet,
But working on the Steinways is the best that it gets

The Grand Spinnets the old uprights
it doesn't seem to attract young men, but eventually it might

You can keep a piano going two hundred years
if you use the right touch
he says he'll never retire, it's just not his style,
He just likes his job too much
Because it can't be taught, no it can't be taught,
Practice not training,
Just you go and ask him, he loves to tell you, and he'll start explaining:

There's fewer young men in tuning
you don't make your money right away.
Most are musicians having hard times
who need something to do with their day

The Grand Spinnets the old uprights
it doesn't seem to attract young men, but eventually it might

basic a440 then an octave down in relationship with that combination of tunes to make a good sound, up a fifth, down a fourth a circle of fifths and an octave, when you get it balanced in fourths and fifths you take thirds and sixths and you've got it, make sure it's balanced the rest of the octaves from up high down to down low, all you need is to count the beats and you can tune a piano

His mother told him he should consider
a job where he would use his ears.
His perfect pitch for working on the ivories
and he didn't think of it again for years,
but later he was able to see himself in the role his mother had once described
so he read as many books as he could gather and worked for free where he could try.

To do before Friday

Figure out what to do with Perelandra

Clean the house
Tidy living room
Clean bathroom
Clean kitchen
Clean bedroom
Finish laundry
Do dishes

Pack

Finish buying presents

Write a book review

Renew driver's licence and health card

Tie up all loose ends re: Youth

Order academic transcripts

Patience

It is Advent, and has been for three weeks now.

I have a very strict policy about Advent and Christmas. I don't allow myself to start counting down for Christmas until Advent begins. We don't decorate our apartment until the First of Advent, and even though it is one of the greatest pleasures of my life, I don't buy any eggnog until then either.

But once the first of Advent comes around, the decorations come out, the Christmas music starts playing and the eggnog starts flowing.

Advent, like Lent, is a period of waiting, of preparation. It is a time of repentance and of penitence. We make ourselves ready for the feast, and patiently count down the days.

David Widdicombe, the Rector of St. Margaret's gave a few sermons on patience recently. He talked about our tendency to call for patience in others mostly when we have lost our own. He talked about patience not only as a virtue, but as one of God's defining characteristics.

In the creation, God made space and time for creatures unlike himself. And this is the meaning of patience--making space and time for others. And now, in advent is, we have a time to practice patience. Not only to practice in the sense of rehearse, but to practice in the sense of to act out.

And although I am tempted to ask when my patience will finally be rewarded, when I can stop being patient, that is of course an impatient attitude. So I strive once again for patience as I make my way to Christmas.

Happy Advent

Is it just me...

... or has youtube changed their code to make the interface more obnoxious? Particularly with embedded videos, which can now no longer back up, and which seem to spaz out if I click anywhere before it has completely finished downloading.

Also:
Hi. I'm still alive. I've learned to knit (or am learning). Currently I'm making a toque big enough for a beach ball, because that's how big our circular needles are.

Thanksgiving

I've been thinking lately about thankfulness and entitlement. It's not exactly a new insight, but you can't have both at the same time.

You can't feel entitled and simultaneously thankful. And that may have something to do with why rights language bothers me.

It's not that I don't think human rights are worth fighting for, and protecting. I do. I think that what gets called "human rights", really are inalienable and ought to be granted in full to all human beings. But I also think that it's a philosophically dangerous road, because a mentality of rights is incompatible with a mentality of gratefulness or thankfulness. Yet thankfulness is one of the prerequisites of happiness. I'm sure you have experienced as much as I have that you are happier when you are thankful than when you get something you deserved anyway. A life of thankfulness is a better life in most ways than a life of entitlement.

We hear so much, whether from a materialist-consumer-driven economy or from a rights-focussed-individualist politic, about what we deserve. But the questions that don't often get asked (or at least I don't often hear them asked) are: why? why do I deserve anything?

Have I done anything to earn even my existence? Then on what grounds do I deserve even that? And if I don't deserve life itself: if even my life is a gift, than what can I deserve within that life? What rights do I have, except what has been granted to me, through no desert of my own? And how can I possibly respond or react to this situation except to give thanks?

I don't post on my blog

Obviously

Ouch

The Schmidt Sting Pain Index is a scale of the relative pain produced by stings from various hymenoptera (wasps, bees, ants, etc). On a scale from 0 to 4 entomologist Justin O. Schmidt rated 78 species of hymenoptera. Below is a sample provided via everyone's favourite pedia, wikipedia.

* 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
* 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
* 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
* 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
* 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
* 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
* 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
* 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of Hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
* 4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).
* 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.

In case you're curious, I'm fairly certain it was a hive of paper wasps that stung me many times as a child and triggered my ... er... let's call it aversion to hymenoptera.

Drive-By Posting

Recent highlights of my life include:

-Both of Jan's sisters have new sons, Lorinda and Chris' son Samuel was born March 3rd and Susan and Chris' son Damien was born on June 24th.
-Great camping trip with Kinsey and Amanda in Bird's Hill
-Great impromptu trip to Saskatoon to see the newest of the aforementioned nephews
-Great canoe trip with the youth from St. Margaret's in Lake of the Woods
-My sister Cathy is coming to Winnipeg on Thursday

I hope to post more, and in more detail soon, but I have resolved to feel no guilt if I don't.

Conspiracy Theory Day

I think that the movement toward debit cards and away from cash is a deliberate attack on the poor. The poor, more than any other people, rely on cash, in the form of change (particularly SPARE change). As fewer and fewer people carry cash, casual charity decreases also. That applies for canvassers, who knock on people's doors in support of charity, and who once might have gotten a dollar from a house in which there is now no cash. It applies for buskers and panhandlers, who depend on the casual generosity of strangers for their subsistance.

Interac is clearly a plot against the poor.

Pathetic

My maternal grandfather wrote a four or five page letter to my mother every week from the time she moved out until the time his Parkinson's got too bad for him to do it anymore. For about thirty years he wrote her single every week.

I can't even write on my blog.

I love the internet

The White Stripes are coming to Winnipeg. Maybe that's why I've been humming this song for the past week:



Then I was walking home from work last night, and I started, for reasons I cannot explain, to sing "Get Back". So I got home, and watched this:

.

Then I found myself humming again, and so I just finished watching:



My every musical whim is instantly satisfied.

Conspiracy Theory Day

You may have heard that the Beatles put pro-drug messages in their song lyrics. The truth is, they often snuck pro-classical music messages.

Get Bach
I want to hold your Handel
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Mozart's Club Band
Ludwig (von Beethoven) in the Sky with Diamonds

... to name just a few of the most obvious.

Goodbye Iowa

I spent the weekend of the 11th in Iowa City at my oldest sister's convocation. Jill graduated with a PhD in Women's Studies. The graduation was long and not terribly interesting in itself, but it was pretty cool to see my big sister become a doctor. Jill and her partner India hosted a big party later in the day, full of food, drink and good conversation.

Cathy and Freda were there too, and so were my parents. The best part of the trip was spending time with my family, and I left promising both Cathy and Jill that I would do better at keeping in touch with them in the future. And now I've put it into writing. So I'd better actually do it.

Job Talk

So far I have two jobs for the summer, both in the evenings.

The first, canvassing for the Wilderness Committee as part of their grassroots education campaign, seems like nice enough work. It involves knocking on doors, which I got very used to last year as an enumerator for Statistics Canada, and telling people about the Wilderness Committee. Not too tough.

The second job is something completely new for me: manual labour. I'm laying brick for a small business here in Winnipeg. It's strictly inlayed brick, driveways and walkways not walls and houses. I've worked one three-hour shift so far, and it was both very satisfying and very tiring. There's something very rewarding about being able to see the fruits of my labour, and I don't remember the last time I slept as well or as soundly.

I also applied for a job with Golder, which sometimes hires students for the summer. They don't know yet if they need any help, but if they do, they say I'll be the first one they call.

What do you think?

I'm worried that our cat Perelandra is bored. She's mostly a very good cat, very affectionate, and cuddly, and so far I've taught her to jump through a hoop and to sit, and I'm working on roll over. But we're away from home so much of the day that I'm afraid she's lonely and bored. So we've been considering a second cat.

Pros:

• If one cat is good, a second could be even better
• Perelandra no longer bored and lonely
• Possibly no longer bored and lonely= slightly less destructive/less inclined to suddenly go crazy-go-nuts and attack us

Cons:

• What if the second cat is a jerk?
• Finding someone to take care of one cat when we go out of town is one thing, but to find someone to take care of two cats might be harder
• The price of buying it
• The price of more food and more litter
• What if the new cat won't share a litterbox with Perelandra? Second litter box? Put it where?

Return of the Paul

I fail at recounting Holy Week at St. Margaret's this year. It was good. But it was so long ago now, that it seems futile to go back and blog about it. So I haven't been blogging about anything, because in the back of my head I've been thinking that I will come back and blog about Holy Week. And then I don't.

So I officially give up. But happily Holy Week will come again next year.

Life here is good, though now that school is done I have to find a job, which is daunting, despite the encouragement of many--especially my sister Cathy. Cathy thinks I should get a job workign for Golder, and/or for the Wildnerness Committee, and/or some paid clowning gigs. I'll let you know which/if any of those work out.

In other news, the St. Margaret's youth had our Guy's Night on May 4th, and it was an unqualified success. We spent as much on that night as on four or five other nights, but I think it was worth it (as a one-time deal). Our youth group has tended to be quite girl-heavy, so it was nice to have such a good turn out of guys, including several friends. We went paintballing, ate ice cream and chips and pizza, ran around the church in the dark like crazy people, and played GameCube late into the night. Lots of fun.

Sorry to leave you hanging

School has been rather all-absorbing lately. I promise to tell the end of the story (of Holy Week) soon. Let me spoil the ending, though. Jesus is ALIVE!

Here's a poem in the mean time:

Easter Wings

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With Thee
O let me rise,
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With Thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day Thy victorie;
For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

George Herbert

Clone Wars

Donald Phillips, The Bishop of Rupert's Land, is responsible for overseeing about 50-100 churches. This year he was at St. Margaret's for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday morning (in the congregation) and both Easter Vigils. Last year he was at our Maundy Thursday service, Good Friday and both Vigils also.

Aren't there any other churches that might like him to visit them? I don't know. Jan's theory is that, like Santa Claus, the Bishop has a number of clones whom he can send out to help him in his work. We think that the person sitting in the congregation on Good Friday was the real bishop, but all the others are just clones.

Good Friday

When the Good Friday service begins, the cross is still shrouded and the alter is still stripped. The clergy and lay-readers are still dressed in black.

The service itself, which centered heavily upon the choir, who sang beautifully both American folk songs and pieces from Bach's B Minor mass, including a beautiful aria sung by up-and-coming opera singer Sandra Peters, was moving and sad, beautiful and touching. Interspersed with the choir music, David gave a series of reflections on Jesus' death.

What liturgical Christians need to remember, said David, is that it is not enough to recite the creed. You need a personal relationship with Christ. Do you want to see Jesus? Do you want to look in his face? It is not an easy face to look upon, this time of year. It is a face of suffering and pain. But what we need, if we want to be followers of Christ, is not an explanation, not a theory, not a theology. We need to be in the garden with Christ. We need to walk with him to the cross. And that is what the liturgy provides for us. Through the litugy we are there. We pray with Jesus in the garden, and like his disciples we fall asleep. We abandon him and we deny him, but we are still welcome at the foot of the cross. We witness his suffering and we mourn with the disciples. And we walk with Joseph of Aramethia to the new tomb, and we help to lay Jesus down.

And we wait.

Maundy Thursday

Easter is the holiest time in the Christian year. Easter isn't just a day, it's a season. Starting with Palm Sunday, no service in a Liturgical church ends. All of Holy Week is really one long service, and today was Maundy Thursday.

Maundy Thursday, the comemoration of the Last Supper, and of Jesus washing his disciples' feet, is one of the most moving services in all of the church year. The Bishop of Rupert's Land was at St. Margaret's again this year, and after we read the Gospel telling how Jesus washed his disciples feet and heard a sermon on why Peter didn't want his feet washed--why a salvation that means God serving us is beyond our acceptance, since it means that we can't earn our salvation--the Bishop called members of the congregation who so chose to let him wash their feet.

When the service was all over, the clergy and all the lay-readers took off their albs surpicles and stoles, leaving only a black cassock underneath. They left the bread and the wine on the alter and left it all behind. Like Peter who abandoned and denied Christ, they abandoned their office and they left the body of Christ. Solomnly they walked to the back of the church, and slowly the lights of the sanctuary were turned off. One by one.

In the darkness, a cantor sang Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; by night as well, but I find no rest.
Yet you are the Holy One, enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
Our forefathers put their trust in you; they trusted, and you delivered them.
They cried out to you and were delivered; they trusted in you and were not put to shame.
But as for me, I am a worm and no man, scorned by all and despised by the people.
All who see me laugh me to scorn; they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying,
"He trusted in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, if he delights in him."
Yet you are he who took me out of the womb, and kept me safe upon my mother's breast.
I have been entrusted to you ever since I was born; you were my God when I was still in my mother's womb.
Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.
Many young bulls encircle me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me.
They open wide their jaws at me, like a ravening and a roaring lion.
I am poured out like water;all my bones are out of joint; my heart within my breast is melting wax.
My mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.
Packs of dogs close me in,and gangs of evildoers circle around me; they pierce my hands and my feet; I can count all my bones.
They stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them; they cast lots for my clothing.
Be not far away, O LORD; you are my strength; hasten to help me.
Save me from the sword, my life from the power of the dog.
Save me from the lion's mouth, my wretched body from the horns of wild bulls.
I will declare your Name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.
Praise the LORD, you that fear him; stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel; all you of Jacob's line, give glory.

The black-clad figures walked back up, and piece by piece stripped the alter, and a black shroud was placed over the cross. In the dark and the quiet, we got up and left the church.

We know what will happen next. We feel uneasy and unrestful. And we wait.

Holy Week

Today was Maundy Thursday. Holy Week has officially begun.

Really it started last Sunday, with Palm Sunday. Our Sunday morning service included children waving palm branches, prancing around the church in excitement.

Palm Sunday is always bitter-sweet. Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph. The crowd cheers, they wave palm branches, they lay branches and cloaks on the ground for Jesus' colt to ride on, like Sir Walter Raleigh laying his coat in the mud for Queen Elizabeth to step on. Jesus is Lord and King. When people tell him to quiet the crowd he responds "If these were silent, the stones would cry out!" And the people aren't silent. They shout "Hosanna!" They shout "The King!"

But we can never quite forget that the next time we see a crowd shouting at Jesus they are shouting "Crucify him!" How many people were in both of those crowds?

So we celebrate, but when we are done we burn the palm leaves, and save the ashes. We save them for almost a year, until next Ash Wednesday, when the priest spreads them on our foreheads in the shape of a cross and says "Remember O man (or woman) that dust thou art and to dust wilt thou return."

Palm Sunday is always bitter-sweet.

In the evening we celebrated Passion Sunday. A string quartet played Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ, and our rector David Widdicombe offered a series of meditations on those last words.

Jesus says "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." This doesn't mean "They don't know, so they shouldn't be held responsible." The ignorance is not the excuse. It's more like someone saying "Forgive them for they robbed my house". "They know not what they do" is why they need forgiveness, not why they deserve it. We are forgiven freely by the grace and love of the suffering God--the God who suffers on our behalf. We don't know what we are doing, but we are forgiven.

Amen.

There must be more then this provincial life

I made a flippant (do I make any other kind?) comment on Claw of the Conciliator's blog in which I said something like "Disney's morality is almost completely incompatible with Christianity". It was a response to an article he was quoting that said something about "Disney-brand “Judeo-Christian morality,”. Claw commented that Disney isn't about Judeo-Christian morality but about believing in yourself, and I meant to agree, but went overboard.

Anactoria asked in the comments "Hey Paul, how are Disney stories incompatible with Christianity exactly?" and rather than hijack Claw's comments completely, I though I would answer her in a blog post of my own.

If you want more background for some reason, check out this post and the comments to it.

Disney's morality tends strongly towards secular-humanism-lite-plus-occasional-new-age.

Beauty and the Beast, to use your example, Anactoria. is drawn from a fairy tale, yes. The version of the fairy tale I'm most familiar with goes like this:

A rich merchant lived in the city, with his daughters, one of whom was Beauty, but he lost his wealth, and he and his daughters (whose suitors no longer wanted to marry them) had to live in the country. One day, he heard that a ship of his had returned. He went back to the city. His other daughters asked for jewelry and dresses, but Beauty wanted only a rose.

Beauty's father, lost in a forest and caught in a storm, finds shelter in the Beast's palace. As he leaves, he plucks a rose to bring back to Beauty, offending his unseen host, who denouncing him as a thief, tells him he must now die. The father begs to be allowed to see his daughters again: the Beast says that he can go if he promises to send the first living thing he meets on his property back to the Beast. The man agrees, assuming that the first thing he sees will be his cat, but Beauty runs to meet him, and he sees her first. Beauty journeys to the Beast's castle convinced she will be killed, but instead she is made mistress of the enchanted palace, and the Beast asks her to be his wife. She says she can be his friend, and will stay with him forever, but not as his wife, asking only to return to her home for a week to say farewell to her father. Her sisters entice her to stay beyond the allotted week, and she returns belatedly to the castle, finding the Beast lying near death from distress at her failure to return. She begs him to live, so that he may be her husband, and by this act the Beast is transformed into a handsome prince. After Beauty returns to the palace, her family comes to live with her. (very slightly altered from the wikipedia on Beauty and the Beast)

Now this pre-Disney version is about all kinds of things. It's a children's story, but it's multi-layered and profound. It's about female sexual maturity (the girl leaves her father for a man who seems beastly at first, but who she eventually becomes attracted to), it's about the redemptive power of love (the beast is becomes human because he is loved), it's about both the importance keeping promises (Beauty breaker her promise to the Beast has disastrous consequences) and the danger of making promises (the father has to sacrifice his daughter because he is bound by a promise), it's about self-sacrifice (Beauty gives of herself to save her father), and it's about deceptive appearances (Beast looks ugly but beneath it is good). I'm probably forgetting some stuff, but you get the idea. This is all just to say that just because it's a children's story doesn't mean the morality has to be watered down.

Disney's version maintains the deceptive-appearances angle (sort of, I'll get into that). Gaston is handsome but evil, the Beast is ugly but good. But let's look closer, and especially let's look at what Disney has added to the story and what they've taken away.

Belle starts the movie by complaining about her provincial life. She's bored. Like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, like Pocahontas, like Mulan, like Aladdin, Belle is unhappy with her life among the commoners. She wants excitement, and (like the other characters) she finds it, because she's special.

In the fairy tale the spell is broken when she agrees to marry him. In the Disney version it's when she says she loves him. What's the difference? In one it's about the redemptive power of love a committed and self-sacrificing love, and in the other it's about the power of love with no strings and no risks.

Christianity is a religion in which sinners are ransomed from the fall. Judaism is a religion in which a just God blesses a people with the Law, so they can live rightly with him and be a light to all nations. "Judeo-Christian" morality emphasises self-sacrifice and the existence of a truth beyond human understanding but which is made access able to us by grace. It emphasises love as an action instead of only a feeling, and it emphasises that what you do matters.

Disney morality emphasises that the truth is found within oneself, that love is like a light switch that fixes things without and risk or sacrifice.

Via Diedre

create your own visited countries map

Now squishied so it can all fit!

Black is so passe

So I've had enough of the blackness of my blog. It's not a dramatic change to move to blue, but it feels like time for it.

Seder

Jan and I hosted a Seder supper on Friday, and (if I say so myself) it was a smashing success.

I wish we could have invited more people, but even as it was our apartment was a little full, our finances were a little strained, and the food was only just enough.

Still, though, it was great to have a party with some of our friends, to spend all week cooking and preparing, to have people in our home, looking through our books. Adding the service of a Seder to the party just made it that much better, in my opinion, and I think this will become a Moffett tradition.

The menu was:
A hot spinich salad with raisins and pine nuts
Chicken soup with homemade matzo/chicken balls
Roast potatoes and carrots
Green beans
Stuffed lamb
Haroset (a fruity, nutty dish kinda like a chutney in concept, more of a condament than a dish)
Matzo bread

Next time I'll double the potatoes, the lamb, and the stuffing, and add more green beans. I don't think anyone went home hungry, but there sure weren't many leftovers.

The liturgy of the Seder involves (among other things) filling your wine glass at four different occasions, and that might be part of why as the supper went on it became progressively less solumn and more joyful, with more jokes and silliness. It seems very appropriate to me, as we celebrate the move from slavery in Egypt to freedom, to become more joyous throughout the night. It also occurred to me that slaves cannot drink four glasses of wine with a meal.

This post is very rambling, but the point is: our seder was great.
Next year in Jerusalem.

What's Up?

So in answer to the questions I get from people who I had no idea read my blog, and also in answer to my friends who are curious:

It turns out I need another part-year of pre-MA studies. It's extremely disappointing and discouraging, but there's nothing I can do about it.

I'm trying to look on the bright side, so here it is:
* This means another year in Winnipeg. We are so involved at St. Margaret's, and so happy with our involvement, that I'm in no hurry to leave the city.
* I don't need to be full time next year, so I might take advantage of this opportunity to take a few courses that always looked interesting but that I didn't have time for. Like etymology, and Chaucer.
* After a year at U of M I don't know very many profs, and those I do know I don't know all that well. One more year gives me more chance to make an informed decision about a faculty advisor.

In other news, Jan and I are hosting a Seder Supper in our home on Friday. If I have any Jewish readers they will no doubt wish to point out that Passover isn't until Tuesday. I know. But try inviting people to a dinner starting at 8pm on Tuesday night that includes four glasses of wine. So we're having it on Friday, demonstrating again that Christians may talk the talk of ritual, but when the rubber meets the road we don't walk the walk.

Okay seriously, it is one of the tenents of Christianity that mercy triumphs over judgement and grace superceeds the law. That means that while we follow the law, we aren't bound to it.

It is a big feast, with as many people (or slightly more) as our apartment can hold. I wish we could have invited more people, but we really are pushing it already. We haven't heard back from everybody yet, but if every invited person comes, it will make 13--the same number as Jesus' last supper.

But I hope ours goes better for us than his did for him.

A sedar supper, for those who don't know, is the ritual meal of passover. It is the meal Jesus was eating in the upper room with his disciples. It is both a feast and a service, and every part of the meal has ritual significance. We've been running ourselves like mad trying to get everything ready--buying groceries (including Kosher Wine), cleaning the house, checking with our invided guests. Now it's Thursday and all Jan and I need to do is finish cleaning, buy some more wine, buy ground almonds (no flour is used during passover), buy more matzah bread, buy the lamb (bone out, but keep the bone), prepare all the food we can ahead of time, run through the liturgy together to make sure we know it, and to get a sense of the timing, figure out seating, find two white candles, clear our home of leaven, and we'll be good to go.

Unless I've forgotten something.

The Problem of Pain in the DC Universe

I've been thinking lately about Superman and the Problem of Pain in the DC Universe.

Since Superman's inception he has gotten progressively more powerful. In his very first incarnation, Superman was able to lift a car over his head, run at great speeds, leap 1/8 of a mile, and had skin so tough it could not be pierced by anything short of an exploding artillery shell.

As time passed, he got stronger, tougher, faster, gained the ability to fly, x-ray vision, heat vision, super hearing, super breath, etc.

Superman's powers expanded as his enemies became more viscious, as his stories became more epic, and as writers got, frankly, a little carried away. But as Superman became more powerful, it forced the DC Universe to cope more and more with the theological problem of pain.

If Superman has super speed and super hearing, then how--within the fictional DC Universe of which Superman is the preeminant hero--can the ordinary citizens explain any suffering? How can Superman justify going on a date with Lois? How, within the DC Universe, does any crime or any natural disaster, or any accident ever hurt anyone? How does anyone die of any cause other than old age?

As Superman becomes more powerful, it becomes more and more difficult for the writers to avoid the problem of pain.

Apparently, writer Kurt Busiek has been thinking along the same lines. Busiek, who made a name for himself with Astro City, is quite simply one of the best writers of superhero stories out there today. He writes superheros as legends, uses their iconic status to tell fables that are often disarmingly moving. In the February issue of Superman he tells a simple story whose predictable ending, does not make it any less powerful. As Gabriel Mckee at sfgospel says "we can pretty much see where the story is headed from the beginning, but this foreknowledge simply fills it with the power of fable and parable. This story does everything that a Superman story should do, using the character's iconic status to tell a moving story about power and faith." An old woman in Metropolis becomes convinced that Superman is an angel, God's agent who comes when she prays. Superman's super hearing means that he can hear her prayers, and can respond. It's a story that needed to be told, and that deals surprisingly well with the theology of suffering. Again, I'll quote Gabriel Mckee: "If you buy only one Superman comic this year, make sure it's this one. "

Thanks to Elliot for pointing it out to me.

America is getting stupider

Remember when "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" debuted, and there was a general cry of dismay that the questions were too easy? No? Maybe that was just me.

Anyway, the newest of the stupid game shows spawned by the abhomination that is Deal or No Deal (I hate Howie Mandel) is Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

As one might expect from the title, the questions are (ostensibly) drawn from grade 1-5 textbooks in various subjects. And the contestants are apparently drawn from the bottom of a lake, where they have been held for just long enough to suffer perminant brain damage.

The biggest problem with it, really, is not even the relative easiness of the questions. The biggest problem is that in a half hour episode, the contestants answer about four questions. The rest of the time is filled with stalling, and transparently manipulative attempts to raise the level of tension.

Bah. Give me Jeopardy!

There's no such THING as coincidence

If Elliot from Claw of the Conciliator shaved off his goatee, he would look a lot like Elliot from Rob and Elliot.

Coincidence?

Bible Quiz

You are 74% Scripture literate!

You are a Pseudo-Bible scholar. Good job, apparently you actually read the good book every once in a while.

The Adult Bible Quiz
Create a Quiz

As Elliot said, it's more about obscure biblical trivia than useful knowledge. Still kinda fun, though.

Self Doubt

So a few weeks ago I applied to the Master's of English program at U of M.

I didn't even apply anywhere else, mainly because Jan and I want to stay at St. Margaret's for at least a few more years, and that would be hard to do if we leave Winnipeg.

Since I was accepted into the pre-master's program, it seems that my chances of being accepted into the Master's program are quite good. I mean, unless my grades last term had plummited (and they haven't, they've significantly improved) why would they reject me now?

But still I'm afraid that somehow they've found out that I'm not really smart enough to be a graduate student. So every day I anxiously check the mail, and so far there has been no response.

...

Do you think that's a bad sign? They would tell me if I was rejected, right?

Time-Wasty

Via Elliot

It works like this: "The bolded books are books I've read (and even enjoyed) ... italicized books I would like to read, books with crosses are on my shelf and asterisked books I've never heard of. The books that are striked out I am unlikely ever to read. The books listed here that haven't felt the touch of my cursor and remain unedited I could care less or more about on any given day.

I imagine the books on this list were selected for their best-seller status or something like that."

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. †Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. †To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. †The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. †The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. †The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. †Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. †Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. †Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. †Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. †Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. †The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. †The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. †Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. †Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. †The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. †The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. †Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. *The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. †The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. *I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. †Bible
46. †Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. *She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. †A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. †Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. †The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. †Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. *The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. †Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies) (read it, but HATED it)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) (Read parts of it)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. †Les Miserables (Hugo) (also read it in French)
70. †The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery (Own it in French, don't think I've ever read it in English)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. †Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. †Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. †The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. *The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. *The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Copycat

Diedre posted about the strange searches that lead to her blog, and I thought I'd do the same. Because I'm a big copycat.

Actual search engine searches that lead actual people to this blog:

"definitely get cured of parkinson"
"racism half breed"
"cassock albs"
"how does vergil in the aenead build on the epic tradition"
"i am the chiefest of sinner"
"lenten clown skits"
... and about a million variations on "god's gonna cut you down"

My Ticket Outta Here!

Myspace Layouts

Make your own.
Via Elliot.

I can set you up with his manager, if you want...

As some of you may know, Cathy's boyfriend Dylan is an artist. Quite a good one, too.

For me, one benefit of this is that Jan and I have original art decorating our apartment.

One of the things I really like about his art is that without being boring he has a distinctive style. His work is recognizably his. It doesn't look like someone trying to copy Monet or Picasso or whoever. It looks like Dylan T. Farrell. Yet each piece really is different.

It also bears looking at for a long time. I feel that it stands up to close examination. He has real talent.

I'm no art critic, and confess that I am woefully uneducated in art history and art appreciation and such. But to use a cliche, I may not know much, but I know what I like.

Forced

Blogger forced me to change to the new blogger. I'm not impressed.

So ... it's been awhile.

I don't know what to tell you.

The Sin of Snobbery

In his work Heretics G.K. Chesterton writes of heresy:

In former days there heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled gainst them; they had rebelled against him. ... The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man' he was a church. He was the centre of the universe; it was round him that the stars swung. All the tortures torn out of forgotten hells could not make him admit that he was heretical . But a few modern phrases have made him boast of it. He says, with a conscious laugh, 'I suppose I am very heretical,' and looks round for applause.

Heresy is still, in our own age, far too often considered something to be proud of—when to anyone who really knows the meaning of the word is should be something to be vehemently denied. But perhaps worse today is the attitude toward snobbery.

Snobbery was once understood as a manifestation of pride. Pride—which C.S. Lewis considered the most demonic (rather than animal) of sins. Sneering, dismissive pride, which considers other people as insignificant. Pride, which demeans and dismisses God's image, and God himself.

Yet I've heard many people admit to snobbery with a tone of boasting rather than of confession. I've done it myself, and far more often I've privately congratulated myself on my snobbery. Too often we consider snobbery to be evidence of good taste. Especially when it comes to art—literature, visual arts, music—snobbery is touted as evidence of refinement and judgment.

It is debatable whether aesthetic judgments are objective or subjective. I personally am inclined to believe that there really is a difference between good literature and bad literature, good music and bad music, and that the difference is more than my own taste. However, the snobbish wholesale dismissal of certain kinds of art will necessarily impoverish a person's experience. Worse, snobbery is more than dismissing bad art, it is contempt for the producers and consumers of bad art. It is an implicit denial of the value, of the humanity of some people. It is blasphemy, for it is contempt for the image of God.

I am not immune to the sin of snobbery. I don't think anyone is. But it is a sin, and when we are clearsighted enough to recognize it in ourselves we should struggle against it, ask God for help to conquer it, seek forgiveness, not boast of our sin as if it were proof of our enlightenment or our quality. It is evil, and when I succumb to it is indeed proof of my quality.

God have mercy on me, a sinner.

Scorpions on a Plane!!

Life mirrors art.

How I spent my Christmas Vacation

It was a good Christmas.

No, scratch that, it was a great Christmas.

Niagara Falls was warm, and kinda rainy, and weather-wise, a little depressing. There was no snow. When we arrived, my sister Cathy, her boyfriend Dylan and their daughter Freda were already there, so we got to spend some time with them. Freda has grown a whole lot since we saw her last—she looks like a small person instead of a muppet.

My brother James, his wife Janine and their three children Zara, Caleb, and Elijah, live in St. Catharine's just 10 minutes from Niagara Falls, so we got to spend quite a bit of time with them too.

Finally, my oldest sister Jill and her partner India arrived on Christmas Eve, and we spent one evening hanging out with them, playing spades, chess and boggle.

It's been a while since my whole family has been together, and even longer since we were all together while all getting along.

A few highlights of the trip:

India suggested a game of basketball, and she, Jill, James, Janine, Cathy, Dylan, Jan and I ended up playing a few three-on-three games, which was a lot more fun that I expected it to be.

Teaching both Jan and India to play chess. Jan had no trouble remembering how the pieces moved, but had trouble with the strategy. India was very strategic, but couldn't remember which piece was which. I'm sure that should tell me something about their respective characters, but I'm not sure what.

We went on a big ferris wheel with my dad, who was very nervous. It's not kind to mock him, but it is fun.

Spending New Years' Eve with Zara, Caleb and Elijah, and—after they all went to bed—with Cathy and Dylan.

We got to spend some real time with everyone, and it was, all in all, a fabulous trip. Check out Jan's Musings for more.

Return of the Moffetts

We're back from Niagara. Tired but happy. Will write more soon re: adventures.

Parsnips Aplenty

Jan and I are in Niagara visiting my family this Christmas. We've been here since the 21st, and we're leaving on New Years' day.

We're having a good time, with lots of great food. It's nice to see family, and so far we've spent time with my parents, with my brother James and Janine and their kids Zara, Caleb, and Elijah, and with my sister Cathy and Dylan and their daughter Freda.

Although it has all been good, one of the highlights has been Freda, who has grown an awful lot since we saw her last. She smiles and giggles, and is a cutie.

She's about to grow teeth, and instead of a teething ring, Cathy and Dylan give her a hard vegetable to bite on. She spends many a happy moment holding a parsnip and waving it about in joy.

A Day in the Life

Today being Sunday, I spent much of the day at church, and much of my time not actually at church walking to and from.

This morning we taught the youth about the book of Acts, about Ethiopia, about the meaning of the word disciple and the word apostle, about St. Paul and St. Patrick, about the manner of Judas Iscariot's death, about the entymological roots of "Theophilos", and about the end of the world.

In the afternoon I spoke to my mother on the phone and watched the newest episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Then it was back to church for the evening service. I was very tired, and sadly paid not nearly enough attention to the sermon on why Santa Claus is a heretic.

My dress shoes have very little grip and the sidewalks are quite slippery, so on the walk home I got to slide a lot. The only difficult part is picking up the necesary speed without falling over. And, of cource, a rough patch can make a sudden and unexpected stop.

And now I'm home, and Jan and I are watching Pride and Prejudice (the BBC version of course, which was a Christmas gift to Jan from her sister Lorinda). Mr. Darcy will soon propose to Lizzie for the first time, so I'm going to go watch it properly, instead of only half paying attention.

Weffriddles

WOOHOO!

I'm done weffriddles. Some of those were very tough, and most of them I would NEVER have gotten without Jan.

Evil Elliot

I've noticed this before, but in light of Annemarie's recent layout overhaul my attention is once more drawn to blog layouts.

My blog looks a lot like Elliot's, except he is pure and good and I am dark and sinister.

Except, I suppose, in China where he is morbid, and I am clinging to my youth.

And in conclusion I wish to conclude that this is the conclusion

I suck at conclusions. I've realised lately that both in academic papers and on this blog, I tend to just stop instead of coming to any logically or asthetically pleasing conclusion.

Curses!

I'm on level 54 of weffriddles and I don't know what to do now. I MUST SOLVE IT!

This is all Annemarie's fault.

Sad Life

I was out for a few drinks with some friends from class, and I overheard the following conversation.

English Guy:... yeah, in England Sunday is a day for family.
Shaggy Mennonite: Oh yeah. I grew up in Winkler, and it's the same there. It's a day for, like, family and for church and stuff.
EG: Not for me though. For me Sunday is just like any other day.
SM: I know what you mean. What makes Sunday different from any other day of the week?
EG: I know, yeah. It's just like any other day. Even Christmas is just like any other day.
SM: Totally. It's just like any other day.
EG: Yeah, I spent Christmas alone last year, and I'm spending it alone this year, and I don't care, because it's just another day...

And I thought to myself: What a sad existance.

Imagine a life with nothing to look forward to, when every day is just like every other. I feel more sorry for EG than I would if he said he was alone and wishing he had someone to spend Christmas with. He doesn't even know what he's missing.

And I realized how glad I am to be a Christian: to have festivals and holidays to look forward to—festivals that mean something. And I realized how glad I am that I have a small festival every single week—that every Sunday is like Christmas in miniature. And I feel very, very sorry for EG and SM.

Report

Medieval Lit paper-of-doom? Check
History of Critical Theory paper? Check
History of Critical Theory Exam? Check
Hybridity and Literary Imagination paper-of-doom? Done and to be handed in today
Hybridity Exam? Two hours away
Medieval Lit Exam? Saturday the 16th
American Lit paper? Saturday the 16th
Advent ornaments made? Check
People-of-Israel poem rehearsed? Not yet
Advent Pagent? This Sunday
Various parties? All on the same day. I'm going to miss the St. Margaret's Young Adults night and and invitation to Amanda and Kinsey's place in favour of Melissa's party.

Busy-ness

It's crunch time.

I have a three-page paper due on Monday, a 15 page paper due on Thursday, a five page paper due the next Tuesday, and another 15 page paper due the Wednesday. Plus a few quizzes, and once that's all done exams begin. Add to that the various youth events of December, plus teaching Sunday School, plus the several Christmas parties I have been invited to and want to attend if I can.

No blogging for a bit.

Soup II

My soup turned out absolutely delicious, if I say so myself.

It turns out we didn't actually have any vegetable broth, so I made my own, by frying carrots, onion, celery and garlic in the bacon fat, then boiling the whole thing with some sage until it was tasty. Add the squash, and it's done. Simple and delicious.

We finished off all my rye bread already, so I ate it with corn chips instead (leftover from a party we went to). Bread would have been better.

Johnny Cash—God's Gonna Cut You Down

Via Chris (via Youtube).

I wonder whether the various celebrities who appear in this video were actually listening to the lyrics.

Morning Confusion

Our apartment is heated by hot water radiators. As anyone who has ever lived in a radiator-heated dwelling will know, sometimes they make strange noises.

Our radiators are not as bad as the radiators at CMU, but they do sometimes sound like running water.

A few days ago, our cat Perelandra peed on our floor. It was mostly our own fault—we hadn't cleaned her litter box in a few days, and there were some clothes on our floor which were obviously more appealing for her purposes. Needless to say, we now clean her litter box at least once a day, and we no longer leave any clothes on our floor. Talk about learning the hard way.

Anyway, I woke up recently to what sounded to me like someone or something peeing on the floor. Bleary-eyed and fluffy-headed, I rose, caught the cat where she was standing in our (empty) laundry hamper, and carried her out of the bedroom. Then I inspected the hamper. Dry. I smelled the floor. Nothing. I listened, and heard the peeing sound continuing, coming from our heater. I looked at the clock (5:47). I looked at the still-sleeping Jan. I went back to bed.

Soup

Supper tonight will be Bacon-Squash Soup. I'm planning to basically cook a bunch of bacon, add onion, carrot, butternut squash, sage, and vegetable broth, blend and serve. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I admit it

I judge celebrities based on the charity they endorse on Celebrity Jeopardy.

Bread

Those of you who aren't from Winnipeg may possibly are unfamiliar with Winnipeg-style rye, but trust me when I say that Winnipeg-style is the best rye bread in the world.

Foolishly, I took my expedition to buy rye flour without first looking at a recipe for rye bread. My hope had been to make Winnipeg-style rye bread, but apparently Winnipeg rye is not made with rye flour but with white flour and rye meal. So I was forced to make a different kind of light rye bread.

It was pretty good. Next time I will do better though.

That is all.

No YOU'RE a luddite.

As those of you who also use it will no doubt be aware, blogger has released a new version, and really wants us all to switch over.

The new improvements include drag-and-drop templates and labels for each blog post, the necessity of signing in with a gmail account (Jan and I share a gmail account but not blogs. What do we do?), the annoying way that clicking on "comments" now leads you to the bottom of the comments instead of the top, security "improvements", so that now everytime I read blog comments, explorer tells me that the site includes both secure and unsecure items, and am I sure I really want to proceed?

Bah. Humbug. It worked fine before.

[edit to add] One of the big theoretical improvements of the new blogger is "it's a lot more reliable". Right after I made this post, all the blogs I check which were updated to the new version were inaccessable. The non-updated blogs were still accessable. Hah.

Bread

Braided poppyseed egg loaf was a great success.

I made a dough that was essentially white bread plus eggs, formed it into ropes, braided the ropes and let the whole thing rise in a bread pan, so that the result fits easily into a toaster, but still has the pretty, bubbled top of a braided loaf. I brushed the loaves with more egg, then sprinkled generously with poppyseeds.

The finished product is heavier than regular white bread—but still quite fluffy and light—slightly yellow from the eggs, and tastes like poppyseeds. Good for sandwiches.

Next, an expedition to get rye flour.

It's Not Fair!

The Helsinki Complaints Choir, via Neil Gaiman's blog.

The Fiction of Pastoral Care

Care is a complicated thing.

Idiomatically, we talk about taking care of people—and it means meeting their particular needs. Taking care of someone physically means doing for them the things that they cannot do for themselves—whether that means bringing them chicken soup, changing their diapers, or anything in between. Emotionally or spiritually taking care of people is a little more complicated, but in general it's the same concept.

But by the definition of the word, care implies attitude as well as action. Even with physical care, it's worth asking whether care is really always the right word to use. Changing someone's bed dressings if you aren't fond of and/or concerned about them might not actually be care. Spiritually, the question seems to me even more pointed.

I don't know if you can care for someone just because it's your job. Is it actually possible to care for someone you don't know? Is it possible to provide pastoral care for someone you don't actually care about? It seems to me that genuine care requires trust that can only be built up over time—and that the attempt in many churches of institutionalising care is, in practice, a denial of care.

I have been on both the giving and the receiving end of pastoral care. In the 15 months I have worked with youth ministry, I have attempted to care for people I'd never met before. I have felt their distrust in the face of past abandonment. One former member of our youth group no longer attends because he is frustrated with getting to know new leaders every year—with new leaders who claim to care about him but who don't actually know him, didn't care for him before they were on the payroll and stop caring for him when the payroll stops. He feels that this care is insincere—that it is false. And he is right.

I don't say this to impugn the work of my predecessors. I am sure that each of them did truly try to care for the youth while they were working with them. But I know from my own experience that it isn't easy and it isn't automatic. I've often said—because I believe it is true—that last year with St. Margaret's youth was mostly prep-work, that now I'm ready to actually begin, because now I actually know them well enough that I can genuinely care about them.

And now the challenge for me is not to let them down, not to disappoint the trust I've built. Now that I can care about them, I need act out that care.

And care is a complicated thing.

Hauerwas and Do No Harm

The medical concept of Do No Harm is clearly false. Doctors do harm all the time, and if they were really obligated to hold to "do no harm" they would not do anything. Even something as seemingly benign as giving someone aspirin has the potential to cause harm. Everything doctors do might harm us, and in the end it's mostly a matter of playing the odds.

Drinking from the Fire Hose

In his introduction of Hauerwas on Monday night, David Widdicombe (the rector of St. Margaret's) quoted somebody I can't find now who said that listening to Hauerwas is like taking a drink from a fire hose.

It's true. Trying to summarize his lecture, I found myself writing a longer and longer post, until I finally decided to just write about one point.

In addition to stem cell research and abortion, during his two days with St. Margaret's Hauerwas also touched on the ethics of research posing as therapy, on "mercy killing", on the theological basis of excommunication, on heretical communities, on the problem of modernity, on plastic surgery, on the concept of do no harm, on the problem of medical ethics as a concept, on medical schools as ethical training grounds, on aging, on the five stages of coping with death, on "the quiet atheism of our lives", on being held responsible for what we do when we do not know what we are doing, and I'm sure on many other subjects I've forgotten.

My pal Stanley

As you can read in a few other places, Stanley Hauerwas gave the annual Slater-Maguire lecture at St. Margaret's this year (last year's lecture was given by CBC musicologist Howard Dyck, and next year it will be Ian Hutchinson, head of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT).

I heard Hauerwas speak at CMU a few years ago, and was excited to hear him again. I wasn't disappointed. He's nothing if not an interesting speaker. He has a heavy Texas accent and a surprisingly high and nasal voice. In conversation, his speech is peppered with profanities and enthusiastic, contageous guffaws.

He spoke a few times—once on Sunday evening, preaching on the lectionary texts (the Gospel was the resurrection of Lazurus), then there was a reception of sorts, where he answered questions, then on Monday evening he delivered a lecture entitled "Why Nobody in North America Wants to Die", followed by a question period.

He argued that in our modern world we have forgotten how to die. Medical science tries to convince us that we will get out of this alive—but it's not true. We're all going to die. It's just a matter of time. So the question is: how do you want to die?

We are taught that there is nothing worse than death. We fear death more than anything else. If we may but live another month, it is worth anything to us. And when we finally do die, we typically want to die suddenly. In our sleep. With no pain. We want to die without ever knowing that we are dead. In the Middle Ages, they prayed God to save them from a sudden death. They wanted to prepare for death—prepare their souls, say goodbye to their loved ones.

His lecture ranged over a variety of subjects connected to death, and I may summarise some of them in future posts, but one of the most controversial and interesting things he said was a response to a question about stem-cell research.

For Hauerwas, the issue of stem-cell research is directly connected to abortion and adoption issues. Stem-cell research is justified on the grounds that the embryos being destroyed for the research are extra and would be destroyed anyway. But the only reason there are extra embryos floating around is that fertility clinics produce them. But Hauerwas thinks that fertility clinics have no moral reason to exist. In a world where abortion clinics exist, why do fertility clinics also exist? In a world where fertility clinics exist, why do abortion clinics also exist? Fertility clinics exist because people want THEIR child, not someone else's. But that is pagan bullshit. Christians know that even biological children are adopted. So there shouldn't BE extra embryos whose destruction nobody cares about. Fertility clinics are already a moral issue.

And stem-cell research has been seriously oversold. We get told that if they are allowed to do stem-cell research then Parkinson's (for example) will be cured. But the truth is firstly that we (they) have absolutlely no idea what problems will arise. It is possible that a year of concentrated stem-cell research will lead to a cure for Parkinson's. But it is also possible that twenty years of sustained research will lead to no breakthrough. It is possibly that there is no cure. Secondly, the argument is based on a flawed conception of death—as if all doctors have to do is solve all of the diseases, and no one will die anymore. What do you want to die from? Because you will die. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to care for people, but it does mean that every single one of us is terminally ill, and there is no cure. The ends can never justify the means—because ultimately the ends are always the same. Thirdly, the principal reason medical researchers want to use embryonic stem cells instead of adult stem cells is that embryonic stem cells grow faster. But adult stem cells offer the same potential research benefits, without the same moral issues. Stem cell research is a moral perversion based on a moral perversion based on a moral perversion (based on a moral perversion?).

Bread

My bread in general has never been as bad as my pizza dough once was, and I've had successes in the past, but still. It could definitely be better.

The last few times especially I've been making overly dense bread, and I've been tending toward undercooking it. I think my problem is that most seminal of cooking problems. I'm rushing it.

So, in the tradition of my attempt to perfect pizza dough, I'm going to try to learn to make good bread.

Today was my first attempt in my new culinary undertaking. I made two loaves of plain homestyle white bread for sandwiches. In spite of all temptation, I refused to bake it until it was properly risen, and the result is unquestionably the best bread I've made in years.

Next—Braided poppyseed egg loaf.

Something from the Comments

In a comment on this post, an anonymous person asks: "Have you ever read a book by someone who is NOT a white European man?? (just wondering). "

I answered that comment, but I think it's a good enough question that I should answer it as a real blog post.

My formal education has certainly been disproportionately heavy on the white European (or North American) male writers. One part explanation of this is that I study English literature, (not world literature) which has all been written in English—which accounts for the mostly European and North American part of that. But that really isn't any excuse. Plenty has been written in English in India and throughout Africa and the Carribean, and there are notable examples in Asia and South America. And there there are translations. And I've studied some of it, but only some.

I'm taking a course this year on Hybridity in Literary Imagination designed to partly fill the gaps in my formal education, but it is a pretty thin start. My English prof from CMU once told me that when he finished his Master's degree he felt like his education in literature had just begun. He felt like his BA and his MA were both just the necessary groundwork for actual study. I'm getting something of the same feeling, but not only has my education so far not been deep enough, it hasn't been broad enough either.

And maybe one defense is that I can't study everything. The choice between depth and breadth (in literature studies) is an excruciatingly difficult one. I could spend the next 50 years reading nothing but Beowulf and I would still miss something. Or I could spend the next 50 years and never re-read anything I've read already—and still only read white European men who are worth reading. Or I could spend the next 50 years and never read anything by another white person or another European or another man.

Fortunately, I don't have to choose between those options. But I am sure that in my life—no matter how long it ends up being—I will miss out on great literature that I either didn't read, didn't understand, or didn't give a fair chance to because I was too busy with something I already knew and loved. I'm sure it's happened already.

Outside of school I have read and enjoyed a handful of non-Europeans (incidentally, does Russian literature count as European? Neither Tolstoy nor Dostoyovsky seem to have thought of themselves as European), a handful of non-white writers (Maya Angelou, Booker T. Washington and Sojourner Truth are three who come to mind), and definitely more than a handful of woman writers (Connie Willis, J.K. Rowling, The Brontes, Jane Austin, Mary Shelley, Mary Wolstonecraft, Virginia Wolfe, H.D., Edith Warton being the first few that come to my head).

I would ask for suggestions to broaden my horizons, but honestly I won't read them at least until the summer—unless they happen to be assigned texts for one of my classes.

SEX!

Most Christians know that in Sunday School the answer to any question is either Jesus, God or The Bible.

Q: What's a small furry animal that likes to hide nuts?
A: I know the answer is Jesus... but I think it's a squirrel!

In Victorian Literature, the same general principal applies, except that in Vic Lit the answer is always sex.

Q: What is this passage about?
A: Sex

Q: True. But what is symbolised by the...
A. Sex

Q: Okay... but what is the subtle subtext of...
A: SEX!!!

Clearly a Canadian

You can tell
By the wind
By fresh cut wood all stacked to dry
That autumn's here
And it makes you sad
About the crummy
Summer we had
With pine trees creeking
The raven's screeching
Just like the story my grandma tells
About when a bird
Hits your window
And someone you know
Is about to die

Autumn's here, autumn's here
It's ok if you want to cry 'cause autumn's here

So find a sweater
And you'll be better
Until the kindling is tinder dry
We can be quiet
As we walk down
To see the graveyard
Where they are now
I wonder how
They brought their piano
To holdene hill
From old berlin
Be hard to keep it
That well in tune
With winters like the one
That's coming soon

Cause auntumn's here
It's time to cry now
That autumn's here
It's ok if you want to cry
Because autumn's here

I think that ghosts like
The cooler weather
When leaves turn colour
They get together
And walk along ways
These old back roads
Where no one lives
And no one goes
With all their hopes set
On the railway
That never came and that no one stayed
I guess that autumn
Gets you remembering
And the smallest things
Just make you cry

Autumn's here
It's time to cry
Cause autumn's here
Autumn's here
It's ok now, cause autumn's here
Hawksley Workman

I think he's on to something

Elliot has a theory that militant fundamentalist atheists are actually a part of a conspiracy by fundamentalist Christians to make atheism look stupid.

Soy is Also Murder

So that way, you always feel guilty.

Possible Focus

One of the good things about my current position is that while I am pressured to pick a focus, I still have quite a bit of freedom to change my mind. So here's my tentative focus:

Over the next 3 years (that's not including this one) I want to study the hero in literature, with particular focus on the epic, on mythology, on communal writing and the oral tradition, and on the contemporary incarnations of the above.

I want to use Superman as a particular instance of a contemporary hero without a single creator, and research whether Joseph Campbell's Hero with 1000 Faces is an accurate model of Superman's story, whether as time has passed and Superman's character and story have evolved his conformity to Campbell's model has changed—if so, in which direction? What are the implications of that? If his conformity to Campbell's model has not changed, what are the implications of that? Does a communally created hero like Superman conform more or less closely to Campbell's model than a hero created by a single author?

I will explore various ideas of hero, from Plato’s notion of heroic virtue, including Aristotle’s conception of the tragic hero, to Jungian ideas of the psychologically significant universal hero. I will research both the social and literary function of the hero historically in both popular mythology and in literary epics such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Aenead, Beowulf, Milton’s Paradise Lost, etc. and with special focus on the contemporary heroic character of Superman.

Will my research lead me to support Campbell's idea of a universal myth? What about non-western heroes? How has Christianity affected the development of Western mythology and particularly the Western idea of the hero? To what degree is Superman a product of Western culture, and to what degree is he a universal hero, and to what degree does he fail to be either?

Master's Thesis

You can't just do a Master's degree. You need to have a focus. When I tell people in the departement of English that I'm pursuing my Master's, they invariably ask: "What's your area?" And I have to say, "Well... I like Medieval Lit, and 15th and 16th century, and some Victorians, and Modern Irish Lit, and Milton and Gerard Manly-Hopkins, and G.K. Chesterton, and I've always been interested in King Arthur, and I like classical mythologies and epic poetry, and I'm a big fan of W.C. Williams, and..."

This is called "lack of focus".

On Wednesday, I have a grant proposal due. Apparently, the chances of my actually receiving the grant are quite slim, but I need to have at least submitted a proposal in order to qualify for a Fellowship next year, and blah blah blah.

I have a deadline. By Wednesday I need to hand in two pages saying what I want to do for the next three years, why I'm a good person to do it, and why it requires money. And if I write it well enough, they will GIVE me the money I ask for.

This is called "strong motivation".

The question is—will strong motivation overcome lack of focus?

Just me then?

Have you ever noticed how spaghetti squash smells like chocolate chip cookies?

Ayn Rand

I recently heard Ayn Rand placed next to Hemmingway as one of the two greatest novelists of the 20th century. I've never read anything by her, but I find this claim ... somewhat difficult to believe.

Has anyone read Ayn Rand? Can anyone either confirm or discredit this claim?

Perogies

This week I had my very first and very second attempts at home-made perogies.

Yes, it's true. Despite four years among the Mennonites at CMU, I've never attempted to make my own perogies before. But this week we were between grocery trips, low on many kinds of food and on even the elements of food, but we did have flour, potatoes, cheese and sauerkraut. The building block of perogies.

I made two types of perogies: chedder cheese, and sauerkraut. If I say so myself, they were delicious. I made them again for lunch today, and added feta cheese to the sauerkraut ones, and it was an excellent addition.

Here, kitty

There's a wild animal living in our house.

For some reason, we allow this wild animal to continue its residence in our apartment. We even provide it with food. It wanders around our apartment, freely. It attacks our feet while we sleep, and jumps out at us from under the couch with no warning.

Sometimes, it's true, it pretends to be domesticated in order to gain our confidence and lull us into complacency. She curls up on my lap, growling friendly-like. She disarms my suspicions with her cuteness. But I am not disarmed. I am not complacent.

Be afraid.

What happens on a Circuit night?

On Friday the St. Margaret's youth had an event, which was a smashing success.

The youth group is growing; which is a good thing but poses a few problems. In order to get to the main attraction of our event (go-karting) we had to squish a few more people into the cars than would be ideal. Kevin (one of our leaders) even stayed home, because there was no room for him.

Go-karting was lots of fun. We went to the same place last year, and they were very nice to us both times. They agreed to keep the place open until we left, so we stayed about 45 minutes past their official closing time. Go-kart racing + trampoline basketball + minigolf + video games = good times.

We got back to the church by about 10:00, for ice cream, pop, rice-krispie squares and a talk. Our theme for the year is Running the Amazing Race and our theme verse is "Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." (Heb 12:1) Last time, Jan talked about what comes immediately before this passage—the "Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses..." I had planned to talk about the race marked out for us, but they kept asking questions that made me refer back to Jan's talk the week before. So they heard about the great cloud of witnesses again. Maybe next time We'll really talk about the race marked out.

After the lesson we tried to sing some songs, but it ended in disaster. For one thing, the younger youth (who aren't allowed to stay for the sleepover) kept leaving. For another, I kept interrupting the song to change guitarists or for other stupid reasons. I don't know what was wrong with me. Next time—no interruptions.

Everyone who wasn't staying for the sleepover left, leaving only one boy and six girls. We played a few more games, ran around like maniacs, one of the girls and the last boy also left and the five remaining girls either went to bed, watched Whale Rider, or sat in the youth room talking and playing theater games. Finally they all went to bed, and I curled up in the youth room to sleep alone. No talking, no giggling, no snoring. I slept well.

The next morning we awoke to the smell of fresh (pilsbury) cinnamon buns made by Jan. After breakfast we kicked them all out, and that was that for another month.

Agnosticism

In response to this post, Anactoria writes:

I can understand your opinion on atheism. But agnosticism is intellectually cowardly? You're taking away all of my choices! :P How is it "intellectually cowardly" in your opinion?

First, I should say that it's not a coincidence that I think theism is the only tenable choice. I'm a theist. I don't think atheism is philosophically tenable and I don't think agnosticism is intellectually courageous enough, but that shouldn't surprise anyone. I believe that what I believe is the best thing to believe. That's why I believe it. If I thought atheism was tenable I'd be an atheist. If I thought agnosticism was a valid position, I'd be an agnostic.

My problem with agnosticism is this: Agnosticism is the position that we can never know with certainty whether there is a God or not. Which is fair. But we can also never know with certainty whether there is a spoon or not. We can never know for sure if our senses are trustworthy, we can never know for sure if reason is reliable. When it really comes down to it, we can never know anything for sure. But if we want to do anything in this world we need to decide to believe in something. If we want to have any intellectual life at all we need to decide to trust our senses or our reason or tradition or something.

Skepticism is philosophically valid, but it seems paralyzing to me. And at the root of that paralysis I find cowardice. I feel like that kind of skepticism is grounded on a fear of being wrong. But any intellectual work has the danger of being wrong. Intellectual honestly means that we need to be open to being corrected if our error is pointed out to us, but—to me—intellectual courage means that we can't just remain positionless in the mean time. Eventually, you need to believe something.