Onion, You've Done It Again

Why oh why didn't I find this in time to paste it into my Brit Lit class evaluation form? The last line may be my favorite.

Lewis on the Afterlife

“Is it possible for men to be too much concerned with their eternal destiny? In one sense, paradoxical though it sounds, I should reply, Yes. For the truth seems to me to be that happiness or misery beyond death, simply in themselves, are not even religious subjects at all. A man who believes in them will of course be prudent to seek the one and avoid the other. But that seems to have no more to do with religion than looking after one’s old age. The only difference here is that the stakes are so very much higher.”

~ Reflections on the Psalms

The Blow

A few months ago Chris Aberlesque, Asher and myself went up to Spokane to see The Blow play at Whitworth College. Parentheses is a song you need to hear.

Evals

In keeping with my tradition of offering alternative titles for classes I've taken at the U of I in my class evaluations, I submit to you my suggestion for Brit Lit 342 - "Gender Studies 101: The Wickedness of Men."

Bounderby & Manfred

For my final project in Brit Lit I'm writing a short interchange between Dickens's Josiah Bounderby, and Lord Byron's Manfred. This is the first and roughest draft. I'm basically just aping the characters to demonstrate a grasp of the people in the stories we read, and avoid like the plague writing about anything dealing with women's rights or class struggles. Any advice would be rad, since I don't write fiction. The style is definitely more Hard Times than Manfred, but I get a bit of the Byronic Hero's desire for mad sympity. Enjoy, and comment:

After a longish pause, in which one man busied himself with the task of looking indispensable to the conversation and the other gaped forlornly into the sky, the former flapped his lips.

“I say, Manfred! You’ve quite a wit about you, not that it’ll get you anywhere in this town. Though I do declare that to be the most whimsical jib of the season!”

Manfred’s comment had, of course, been anything but whimsical, jovial, or lighthearted. Seemingly ignoring present company he remarked, “What is laughter but madness? And if madness could offer me that Oblivion which I so achingly seek, by a thousand oaths would I swear to pursue it with all that is left of my riddled heart. A heart so twisted, so—”

“Now now, that’ll do. No need to go on and on about whatever trifle bothers you at the moment. You’ve nothing to compare my own sufferings with anyhow, and you don’t hear me pinning you to the floor with the weight of my life’s tale, now do you?”

Having regained a stranglehold on the conversation, Bounderby took a healthy swig from his eminently practical mug. It wasn’t the worst ale from the brewhouse, and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown certainly wouldn’t expect to be drinking the best, though he could readily afford it. He’d settled on a modestly priced brown ale, which he enjoyed almost as much for its nondescript flavor as for its most agreeable price.

Manfred had positioned himself near a small window and gazed longingly at the world behind a thin glass pane.

“Would that I had not committed so grievous a sin so as to taint my very being to its core,” he wept, burying his face in his hands.

“Now stop a bit,” bellowed Bounderby. “I’ll not hear any more of this chattel from you on such a preposterous topic until you explain yourself reasonably. All this pomp and high speak over a mere --”

“Speak it not!” cried Manfred, thrusting his hand towards his companion. “For to even mention that moment would be to cast my soul into Hades, abandoning Him to the creatures of the Netherworld. My guilt stained hands clasp together to plead with you, remember my fault no more!”

Manfred threw himself at Bounderby’s feet, much to the swelling of Bounderby himself, who was secretly pleased with the situation, but felt obligated out of forced humility to command the man grasping at his ankles to desist.

“Hrmph! Stop that now, this pitiable groveling, you’ll tear my socks to ribbons! Not that I need them, heaven knows I made it through most of my life shoeless, much less without the comfort of socks. Socks would’ve likely slowed me down on my way to where I am today.”

Manfred regained himself and sat back in his stool, staring intensely at a dark spot on the floor between the two men.

“I say,” Bounderby began, looking from the spot to Manfred, “this business that’s troubling you…might I not be able to lend a hand in making things right? I certainly never received any leg up in this world from anyone, but I suppose it would complete the circle or some such thing for me to –”

At this point, a look of such horror came across Manfred’s face that Bounderby thought for a moment that some monstrosity was sidling up to him from behind, and began to turn around in his chair. While he struggled to rotate his bulbous figure in such a small area, Manfred expressed such abhorrence at Bounderby’s offer that the whale of a man had to bolster himself with another pull of ale before stepping back into the discussion.

“See now, it’s not like that, not like that at all. I wouldn’t be simply giving you the means to make right what has been spoiled. That’d be plain foolish of me, and Josiah Bounderby may be many unseemly things, but he’s no fool. I see it as an investment for the future, one that I’d like to see turn a tidy profit in the long run.”

“To entwine yourself with one so wretched as myself is something I cannot allow you to do. Though the Spirits may meddle with Man, I’ll not stoop to their baseness and pull a neighboring vessel down to the deep with my own!” cried Manfred, quite beside himself. “And more, what could a mere mortal as yourself do to cleanse what has been fouled in such a way? It is more of this madness we spoke of earlier.”

Bounderby, seeing his opportunity to call on the authority of a commoner, motioned blusterously for the barmaid to attend to them.

“Now ma’am,” he said, once she had come over and directed her attention from the weeping Manfred to the swelling Bounderby, “you’ve worked here at the King’s Arms pub for how many years?”

“Thirteen, sir, an’ good ones a’that.”

“Fine fine. Now surely in those thirteen years you’ve had a patron or two lose his balance and topple his glass to the floor, have you not? Or is this a magical place,” he said, looking at Manfred with great pleasure in his own proposing of this notion, “a place where the laws of the universe never make a fool of the man who has perhaps been a bit tipsy?”

“Aye sir, we ‘ave. Why in fact, jus’ the other night those Brecken boys was back froom a match an’ –”

“That’s fine, just fine. Now ma’am, I see that you’ve been here a good time and seen many spilled ales. How is it then that the floor upon which our stools sit is not covered with these blemishes?”

Here, the barmaid swelled a bit herself, and said with a beaming smile, “My husband, Clive, that’s ‘ow. He roons the woodshop near the butcher’s and comes to the Arms once a year to keep up the floors.”

“Now let us suppose that one desired to remove a certain spot from the boards. This one for instance.” He motioned towards the dark area Manfred had been eying earlier, much to the mortification of the spiller of ale.

“Hmmm,” said the barmaid as she leaned in for a closer look. “Well I suppose Clive could coom in early and knock that right out for say, three pound?”

“Do you suppose…,” Bounderby looked at her imploringly.

“Julia,” she beamed.

“Do you suppose, Julia, that you might mention that this spot was tended to by Josiah Bounderby of Coketown? Should anyone inquire as to its being cleaned that is. I’m not one for blowing my own horn, but I think it right proper to give credit where credit is due. Don’t you agree?” he directed this last question at Manfred, who was squirming under the gaze of both Bounderby and Julia.

“Have a bit of a tiff with the pint, love?” asked the smiling woman.

“Wretch that I am! Misery upon woe, will these Demons of Memory never cease to plague me? My soul, tender blossom, is unfit for trials such as these. Away!” As he uttered this last word, Manfred threw himself dramatically out of the nearby window, opened by an encouraging young pub rat. The window was but four feet from the ground, and as Manfred picked himself up from the dirt and flowers and shuffled off, Bounderby looked after him, shaking his head and ‘tsk tsking.’

“That’s Josiah with an ‘H’ ma’am, in case you mean to write it somewhere for a man to see.”

Crit

Pictocards

I've scanned in a few shots from my 1 roll of 35mm taken in Utah and Boulder (with one artsy shot from Moscow). Check it.

Call Me An Idealist, But I Believe In Sinless Perfection

My little children , I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. - 1 John 2:1

Notice the wording of IF anyone sins, making sin seem to be the exception, and sinlessness to be the norm.

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it. - 1 Corinthians 10:13

Pretty clear. Nothing that's thrown at you is irresistible, your sin is a choice. If it's a choice and a sinless option exists, sinlessness can be a way of life.

Now I certainly don't believe in salvation making it impossible to sin, some kind of magical blessing that makes sin vaporize when it gets too close to the Sanctified Christian. But the admonishments we receive in Scripture aren't promoting some kind of "close enough" morality. There's no talk of an acceptable level of sin in the regenerate Christian's life.


I definitely think that just like a highly liturgical church needs to be on guard against producing robots that chant back the appropriate creed, those working with kids in an evangelical setting need to be aware of the opposite blunder. My experience has been that the latter tend to embrace more worldly mediums of ministry, everything from Switchfoot to "Satan is a Nerd" t-shirts. These may be mighty Hammers of God, who am I to say? The Devil's work may be smitten $16.99 at a time. But my point is that the line between believer and non-believer is a bit more blurred here, and in an attempt to match every gizmo the world produces with its Christian double two years later, some worldly philosophy can creep in.

That philosophy is the same that I've seen in the Education system, a kind of tip-toeing around feelings where we don't expect much from kids and when they do come up short, "it's ok," we say. "So," the goateed youth pastor asks me, "you think that we should expect kids to be sinless? Well then their self-image will be destroyed when they do sin." That's the point, I would reply. We should be repentant if we sin. It should bother us that we sin at all.



Matt 19:17- The rich man was sinless in all the commandments Jesus asked him about, many of which are sins people claim to be inescapable. He not only avoided the big ones like murder, adultery, and theft, but he also told no lies, honored his mother and father, and loved his neighbor.

John 8:11 - What does Jesus tell the woman caught in adultery to do? "Go your way. From now on sin no more." Hmmm...

Ho Ho

Apparently, Google pulled an April Fools joke on all of us. From this page, it looked legitimate, but click on "Learn more..." for the funny stuff. My favorite line is the claim that "For every Gmail Paper we produce, the environment gets incrementally healthier." What a bunch of Goongles.

New Items

Hot off the shelves of your local Co-Op:

Free range GummiBears: These little guys are fed exclusively on handpicked, chemical-free GummiBerries before being led to an internationally approved GummiSlaughter, agreed upon by a multi-ethnic board which included women. And they met at a round table.

Organic, shade-grown, fair trade soap: So you can feel globally responsible while washing behind....wait a minute....


*I love the Co-Op

Abstinence is Too Easy

"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more that philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is not part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday by the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

~ Clive Staples Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"

Today is the Day

....for a sweet song and so-so music vid. Enter the low-budget video world of Apollo Sunshine for a few minutes and soak in the goodness this Easter.

Clang

In some of the circles I travel in, I hear snippets of Scripture uttered in a kind of "and that's that" tone. And while that is that, I do think that sometimes "that" isn't too carefully considered. I'm thinking specifically of the Proverb that reads "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." In my experience this is interpreted by many as a handful of like-minded dudes sitting in a coffee shop sipping joe and asking each other questions that they either already know the answers to, or have been asked by thousands before them; the question only posed to prove the inquirer's piety.

Call me a literalist, but I can't get away from the idea of, you know, IRON sharpening IRON. It doesn't evoke images of Grandpa gently honing the edge of his pocketknife with a whetstone. If two pieces of the same material are brought together, the result will be violent and unpredictable. Large chunks that you thought were an integral part of your being can be broken off without warning with a harsh noise and bone-rattling vibration. The process of sharpening described here seems to be a bit more chaotic and intense than amiable discussion including questions like "How's your walk bro?"

Another thing to consider is that this Proverb isn't an instructional imperative. We're not told, "Take heed my son and do not follow the fool, who sharpens with moss." This is an observation, much like the preceding line "A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand." These are the facts. Yet we don't see women running out of the house intent on being as unrestrainable as the wind to their husbands. That being the case, this could be read that iron sharpening iron isn't an inherently good thing.

Here are a few other translations of the same Proverb, just for fun:

King James: "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend."
NRSV: "Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits (or face) of another."

Overheard, But Not By Me

My friend Jason just shared this little narrative with me, overheard by him at a coffee shop in Boulder, Colorado:

"What happened between Good Friday and Sunday morning when Jesus descended into hell?"

"Jesus was kicking ass. That's what was happening. The details, we won't know for a while."

A List of Pictures That Never Need to Be Taken Again

• Statues of the Virgin Mary
• Anyone holding a can of cheap beer with his hat on crooked
• Babies
• A ray of sunshine, inspirationally poking through stormy clouds
  

Please add as you see fit, as I'm sure this list isn't exhaustive.

Not Your Promises, But Mine

So I don't think that the great Muse Lucidity was with me when I wrote this, but I'd had the idea for a while and finally punched out a little essay for my Bible as Lit class. If you're familiar with the stories, just read the last two paragraphs for the meat of the essay.

Not Your Promises, But Mine

Seeing as how our text takes the time to point out specific instances of child sacrifice in the Old Testament, I thought I’d offer my take on what God may be trying to convey here. In order to do so, I’d like to first lay out the three instances of paedo-sacrifice we’ll be working with by briefly summarizing and highlighting relevant aspects of each.

Abraham and Isaac

Undoubtedly the most well known occurrence of child sacrifice in the Old Testament, the story goes that God told Abraham to “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” Abraham took two of his servants along with Isaac on a three day journey to the place God told him. When he could see the mountain, he left the two men and gave Isaac the wood to carry for the burnt offering, telling them to stay with the donkey and that “I and the lad will go yonder; and we will worship and return to you.” As father and son trekked onward, Isaac became aware of something missing, namely the lamb to be sacrificed. When he asked Abraham, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” was the reply. When they reached the place, Abraham built an altar, arranged the wood, and bound Isaac atop the whole structure. As he drew his knife to slay his son, an angel of the Lord called to him saying “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Abraham then saw a ram caught in a thicket, and offered the beast up as a burnt offering in place of his son. (Genesis 22:2-13)

On the surface, this story seems to be nothing more than a testing Abraham’s faith. God asked for the thing most precious to Abraham to be killed by his own hand for Him. If we look back a few chapters to Genesis 15 however, we find some important context for this scene. Abraham seemed distressed that he was unable to have a child with his wife Sarah, and that his heir would end up being one of his servants. God assured him that “this man will not be your heir; but one who shall come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.” As He led him outside, God promised Abraham “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendents be.” What I’d like to focus on here is the initiation of a promise being on God’s side. He approached Abraham and made an unconditional covenant with him. This will be further explored after introducing the next two stories.

Mesha

Mesha, king of Moab in the 9^th century BC, provides us with another account of child sacrifice, one that doesn’t end so merrily. Once Israel’s supplier of sheep, Mesha later rebelled against King Jehoram, inviting the army of the northern kingdom to lay siege to Moab. Surrounded in the chief Moabite city of Kir-hareseth as a final refuge, Mesha made one last military push through the Israelite army to Edom, but was forced back. As a last resort he takes his eldest son who would inherit his kingdom, and “offered him as a burnt offering on the wall.” While the text isn’t clear as to who Mesha offered his son to, the Moabite Stone has an inscription attributed to Mesha reading, “Chemosh drove him before my sight,” apparently referring to Jehoram at this battle.

Here, the emphasis seems to be on the weightiness of child sacrifice. A son offered to a foreign god still has enough magic, oomph, whatever you call it to drive back the Israelites. The text is a bit cryptic in describing their reaction, saying only that “there came great wrath against Israel, and they departed from him and returned to their own land.” Yahweh or Chemosh (or both) was impressed with this action to the point of preserving Moab. (2 Kings 3: 4-27)

Jephthah and his Daughter

The last tale of a child being offered to a god comes to us from the book of Judges. Before going to war against the Ammonites, Jephthah the Gileadite made a vow to the Lord saying “If Thou wilt indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” The text follows that the Lord gave the Ammonites into Jephthah’s hand, and he returned home. Ironically, the first thing to come through Jephthah’s door was his daughter, his only child. He tore his clothes grieving that “I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.” His daughter, seemingly wise and calm beyond her years or circumstance, replied in the affirmative, saying “My father, you have given your word to the Lord; do to me as you have said, since the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the sons of Ammon.” She asked only for two months to “bewail her virginity” upon the mountains, after which Jephthah “did to her according to the vow which he had made.”

(Judges 11)

In this instance I’d like to again point out the origin of the promise. This time it was Jephthah who proposed the covenant to God and constructed the agreements for both sides.

My point is two-fold: first, that God seems to be very interested in promises being kept. In His dealings with Abraham, He initiated a covenant between the two, one that required His direct influence in keeping by making Sarah fertile to bear Isaac. When Abraham was commanded to offer Isaac on the altar, he knew that if Isaac died, his line would die with him, nullifying God’s promise of descendents. The test was certainly one of faith, but more so the faith of God’s word. In Jephthah’s case, he, a man, made a deal with God on Man’s terms with Man’s foresight. Both parties kept their ends of the deal, but Jephthah’s honor came a much higher price.

To put it more clearly, while God is interested in keeping vows and promises, these stories seem to be here for the purpose of showing us whose promises are worth keeping. Or better, who should be deciding the terms of an agreement between the Divine and Man. Abraham and his descendents are a picture of a kept promise on God’s terms. Jephthah’s misery is the folly of Man striking up his own deal with God.

The second point I’d like to discuss briefly relates more to the story of Mesha. As I said earlier, the gravity of a child sacrificed seems to the overwhelming theme. While I still hold firmly to that, I don’t think that the idea can be fully appreciated without a look towards Christ, and mention of my previous point concerning promises. Taking the Old Testament’s prophets as God’s promise to Man for a Savior, we have a union of the weightiness of child sacrifice with the perfection of God’s vow. There is no doubt that the offering of a child is a powerful thing, as demonstrated by Mesha. At the same time, God has proven that not only will he keep his word, but that his word kept will result in unimaginable good.


I’d like to end with Solomon’s thoughts on vows from Ecclesiastes:

Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few. For the dream comes through much effort, and the voice of a fool through many words. When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it, for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.

Ecclesiastes 5:2-5