Pile of Stones

Shades of Summer

2008-05-06T23:20:00.000-05:00

I've yet to start the habit of making new year's resolutions. January doesn't seem like the time to get anything done since its the middle of the school year. The summer, however, become prime time quickly. Thus it is my favorite time to set ideals of accomplishments which are probably too high. Here's my first thoughts on a good list for this summer: -Read, of course, but particularly Flannery O'Connor. I'm beginning with a biography/commentary on her and plan to continue with her collected stories and her novel "Wise Blood". I also hope to tackle "Mystery and Manners", which is a collection of her writings on the creative process. -Eugene Peterson's "The Jesus Way" is what I hope to get into as far as theological reading goes. I've fallen off the path a bit too much in not making such reading a discipline and hope to find my way again. -British history, I've discovered, can be fascinating when entered rightly. Simon Schama is a scholar who introduced me to that fact this past semester. I hope to watch some history documentaries done by him this summer through netflicks. -The summer olympics are wonderful. I hope to find somewhere to watch them a bit, especially gymnastics. -I hope to obtain a bread machine for not too much money and start making my own bread. I also hope to build up a bit more experience with things like the crock pot and the casserole dish as well as learning something about grilling. I want to finish reading a book I started about enjoying cooking, which I do already. More plans are in the making. For now, those are enough of a start for it to feel like summer.

2008-03-30T22:39:00.003-05:00

I'm going to Austin, Texas this week for this conference. Currently I'm very excited about it, and am planning to update more later. Some things are worth missing a week of school for.

2008-03-17T09:42:00.001-05:00

The Colors of Spring
The flowers have recently told
Spring’s new (or else winter is old),
But just to be clear
The pollen’s now here:
Midas’s touched, and everything’s gold.

The Sting
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14)
There’s certain salvation in wit—
Not much, now, I’ll have to admit.
Sarcasm’s poor fare,
Though sweet to prepare,
And bankrupts as joy’s counterfeit.

On Not Being Right

2008-02-15T23:17:00.000-06:00

I ate lunch on campus today with a couple of students who had just come from a constitutional law class--both being political science majors. In conversing over eating we got onto the topic of public education in America. As they were talking about various views on the matter I realized how different our viewpoints were because of our experiences. In some respects I felt at times that we were in worlds that almost didn't even overlap. I suspect that is the result of all of us needing to learn or experience a lot more of our fields in order to connect that kind of understanding. In any respect, I realized then that the concerns of someone looking at education through the lens of law and government are completely different than those of someone looking at it through the lens of classroom management and lesson plans. Of course I think my view as a teacher is more accurate, but most big ideas are probably multifaceted enough to be seen from different points of view. That could be considered as an attack on ultimate truth, but I think its more of an attack on any one persons perspective being the whole of ultimate truth. The consequence of that being that we, as humans, need each other to see true things that we wouldn't on our own. I find a very similar experience to all of this in my art theory class, where I find myself as a very small minority of non-artists. At this point I will digress quickly, as the time I've spent studying the philosophy that has probably already charted this idea is small and I won't venture further in the sort of non-adaptive, one-sided communication a post provides. To make an effort at conciseness, I'm beginning to understand more of what it means to not be right about everything, and as that offers a possible gain of communication it might not be as bad as it's made out to be. As this is my first attempt to verbally construct most of these thoughts, I'm not sure how that went, but I hope to mature them over the course of experience.

A question of community

2008-02-09T10:15:00.000-06:00

The other night I had a dream that one of my friends at Belhaven turned a paper in for a class a week early. The rest of the class was banking on the prof forgetting that it was due, and there went all our hopes. I don't have vivid dreams very frequently, mostly I don't remember anything I dreamt. This one stuck around long enough that I began to wonder if it might have actually happened. I've now confirmed that it didn't. I feel like that's probably best.

I like living in a neighborhood. I don't interact much with my neighbors for the most part--which is fine--but there're still traces of an element of something we have in common for living on the same block. In a dorm everyone was basically the same age and we were all at the same place in life (by this I mean we were all college students at Belhaven). A neighborhood has a different sort of community because neither of these things are likely to be the same, which makes our common location seem more significant in some ways. In a parish church system, the kind that I don't think exists anymore, we would mostly all go to the same church if we went to church. We'd have the opportunity to be either gratingly annoying or immediately loving to each other, and chances are we would manage to pull of both almost concurrently. We would see both the more human side of each other in passing during day to day life, and we would need to be reminded often that these very ordinary people--ourself included--are just the kind of people that Jesus came to die for, and for some reason I think it would almost be strange, in a real context, to realize that. I'm sure I would like that model. I wonder how the good elements of something like that could be incorporated into the way things actually are more. For now I leave all my thoughts on the matter there, however, at the occasional relapse into wondering.

Getting around to the housework

2008-01-26T16:39:00.000-06:00

A pile of proverbial dishes are stacked up in a sink. Some laundry and halfway sorted mail is nearby. It is the never ending realization of how much information, knowledge, and wisdom I have yet to process, seek out, and give attention to. My list of books to read and movies to watch is always growing, and I want to, if I can, keep a balance of sorts between the old and the new, which involves knowing what is new. I am only really pretending to know much of value about politics, world affairs, and current social issues. I've been meaning to do something about that for a couple years now. It would be easier--at least less intimidating--if life was more simple, and maybe it is, but I haven't yet learned how to categorize many ideas quickly enough to keep any kind of simplicity. There are also the people, affairs, and issues of my immediate context to understand better. People have stories and perspectives that go beyond mine, and that takes a kind of knowing. Interactions and structures sometimes call for judgment or response--again, more to understand. I believe all this is enough to keep me busy for long enough. There are plenty more piles of knowing to get around to as well. When I was in high school I began to wonder what it would be like to live in a time before global communication. Most peasants in the middle ages never ( I don't think) left the community they lived in. If great artists were painting pictures, what was that to them? Their world was the people they saw day to day, the lord who owned their land, their work to cultivate the land, and the weather that effected their farming. What a vastly different life that would be. I would not, because of that, make any condemnation of the current culture. I try very much to avoid blanket statements about culture, as they usually have nothing to do with understanding it or communicating within it. I think we are all called to work within the culture we find ourselves. I find it comforting, all the same, to know that my mastery of knowing the worlds of information there is to know remains independent of my identity as a person. The peasants were not of more or less value to God than I for the different cultures we live, or lived, in. That raises the question of what is worth knowing, and what can be set aside unlearned. Alas, I'm afraid that, too, is another pile of things to know. I'll try to get around to dealing with that sometime soon. For now, however, I will go back to the pile of class assigned reading which has some weigh of immediate necessity above other things for the time being.

All Shall Be Well

2007-11-22T23:24:00.000-06:00

I've pulled up this window multiple times to write something the past few weeks and have consistently failed to actually do so. To be honest, my life has not been terribly exciting as far as events go. The semester trucks along with tests and cute little elementary education projects. I finished a 48 hour internship in the Jackson Public School system at a middle school. All the sort of thing that are fine and good to happen, but not much for words. I haven't taken the time in a while to try to pull words out of that sort of mundane. I do think that is a worthy attempt, and for that reason I have pulled this window up yet again to write something, though a meager something at that. I'll present bullet points, because they at least will keep this from being a lengthy meager something.

-The weather may be interesting to talk about. Right now its cold outside and I'm inside by a fire. If you were here too, we could remark on how delightful such a thing is. In any case, however, too long on that subject signifies we either can't or won't talk about anything nontrivial. That being said, we'll leave the weather at that for now.

-Venturing into the world beyond weather, the generalities of my life are going well. I like my house. I like cooking. I'm keeping busy. I'd like to decorate for Christmas. I registered for classes and am taking some interesting ones, including 17th century literature, which happens to completely catch my imagination and thus the class could hardly not be interesting.

-I feel a little disconnected from life sometimes. I would rather not admit that such a thing is the case, however. Its a little easier to pretend everything is normal. Melancholy is hard to explain to the average concerned friend wanting to know how you're doing. It seems inconsolable, incurable, unsympathizable, awkward, and unimportant. Where do you go from there? I am not sad or in need of cheer. Disconnected, but not sad. Somehow I think its probably a fairly universal aspect of being human, yet communication fails me.

-All shall be well. All shall be well. All manner of things will be made well.

Maybe that's something of what I'd like to say. I post it up on my site, and if I don't like it I'll realize it after a couple days and post something new so it can start moving to the backdrop.
I don't suppose this is a very good thanksgiving post. I really do believe the last bullet point, though, and I'm thankful for the promise, and the journey towards the land where such promises shed the need for hope and become beautiful and more real.

Truly God is good

2007-09-26T17:56:00.000-05:00

(I posted this on my other site on Saturday and failed to copy it over here. It deals with reflections on a temperary state of emotions. For the most part I'm in a less emotionally turbulent time right now, but I think the reflection remains a valid representation of stuff I'm thinking right now. That said, I'm including this post a little late.)

Psalm 73 is one of the most blatently honest pieces of literature about man's dealings with God that I have yet read. Today I wanted to talk honestly to Asaph (who wrote the psalm) about his experience of life when lived in the tension between the fall and redemption.
"As for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold." (Psalm 73:2, NIV)
I woke up this morning dangerously over pensive about myself and most everything else my life intercets with. Had I had the opportunity I would have had a host of cynical and sarcastic things to say about far too many things. I spent the day building disgustingly biting arguements against a number of different people and groups. I very much wanted to find someone to vent to--I know I could have. I also had the feeling that that would be one of the most destructive things I could have done.
"If I'd have given in and talked like this, I would have betrayed your dear children." (v15, The Message)
The problem was not that what I was thinking was untrue exactly. I don't doubt most things are even more messed up than what I can see of them when they are held to the standard of what they should be aside from the fall. The problem was that it wasn't right.
"When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task" (v16, ESV)
As they mulled themselves over and over I was astonished at how deadly bitter all my thoughts were. It was a wretched experience of how deeply sinful I am. It was beyond my ability to get out of it.
"I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you." (v22, NIV)
I am aware that just because something is what I think doesn't mean it's right. I am becoming more aware that knowing what I am thinking isn't right doesn't make me stop thinking it. I am, in fact, sometimes very happy to go on thinking the wrong thing. What is there to do?
"Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand." (v23)
It still takes me by surprise sometimes to think that God is really always with me. Not in the sense of him staying where he is--where everything is right and in order--and still being there when I finally get things right and in order again (somewhere where I still have gotten yet) to welcome me back. He is continually with me and so was still with me in my caustic bitterness.
"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (v26)
My ability to be wrong will probably not decrease much before I die. I really am that untrustworthy. God is good because he loves me still. Jesus described him as the father in the tale of the two sons who loved both the son who squandered his inheritance and the son who cynically scoffed at it. He is good because it was his fatherhood that was the most precious part of their inheritance. This is not only true, but it is more true than anything else. Its true above or beyond or behind other things that sometimes block it from view so it is always true. God is alway good.
"The nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge." (v28, NASB)

An imposed structure upon the absense of such

2007-09-12T16:58:00.000-05:00

C.S. Lewis wrote somewhere, maybe in Mere Christianity (how's that for good citing) on the topic of loving your enemies. One of the points he made on how we often fail in this was in our eagerness to paint our enemies as bad as they can be painted. It works itself out to be a kind of rejoicing in how bad they are. For example, were someone to tell me one of my enemies (in a very broad sense, of course, including the people I politely interact with but can't stand) who I dislike for the way they acted in one situation were also guilty of sleeping around, I may have no trouble believing it. Of course they are, I always knew I didn't like them, right? It usually seems ridiculous in the extremes, but I'm afraid I carry out the plan subtly every day. It happens to be one of my favorite forms of self justification.
An americano (that's a shot of espresso in a cup of water) is in fact much nicer than a cup of coffee at Cups (the Jackson coffee shop chain). I discovered that today because I was thinking of my former campus minister--who only ever ordered americanos--while I was deciding what to order. It was an unfortunate thing to learn, as it presents the first reasonable temptation to my getting something more expensive than the 98cent cup of coffee every time I go to study.
My classes fell into place this semester so that I basically only have class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It gives a decisive cadence to my weeks that I like. I also very much like the word cadence because when I use it I think of writers like Eugene Peterson or Wendell Berry.
A few weeks ago I saw a rainbow and a sunset simultaneously. It was wonderful, as you can imagine. The very next night it happened again. I suppose I have used up all my allotments for that sort of experience now, and should let others in the world see rainbows and sunsets together.
Its been quite some time since I last wrote a limerick and I have no excuses. If I could I would use the excuse that I don't have internet at my house, but then I would counter my own arguement and say that people wrote limericks long before houses had internet.
I'm approaching the verge of getting to know a cello piece written by Bach. Not being a good musician I don't often get to actually meet real music. I spend more time playing around with notes and meters. I forget that the real music itself is something new altogether. I wonder what other things in life are like that.
This is the seventh of my bullet points and that is not a bad number to end on. It will be a point in your honor. I hope your day brings about a good cup of coffee--if that would be agreeable to you--and I hope you get your fair share of seeing rainbows and sunsets. Thank you for reading.

On fiction, especially children's stories

2007-08-20T13:33:00.001-05:00

I never really grew out of stories, and children's literature to this day remains the genra closest to my heart. With the agreement of others older, wiser, and even more familiar with the gospel than myself I discovered it wasn't necessarily a part of growing up to leave behind stories. So with a strong admiration of the Lewis's Queen Lucy I decided not to get so caught up in the here and now as to forget the Narnia in the back of the wardrobe even though I personally failed in all my literal attempts to find that place in the here and now, even on the rainiest of days. I'm glad for that because in some ways I like the kind of stories we write for children more now than I ever did as a child.
At some point in time (or more likely over time from my early teens until now) I worked out more abstract ideas of what stories are and should be in order to have a basis for deciding what makes up a good story. I was heavily influenced by Lewis and Tolkien particularly among others including others who were also influenced by the same. When questions concerning what is or isn't appropriate for a fictional world (which, as I was a young teen at the release of the first Harry Potter, were being discussed in full color about the time I wondered them myself) I discovered the way in which fiction has the opportunity to be a vehical for truth that nothing else can offer. By making a world in which physical or exact truths were infinitely different than the world we live in day to day something deeper could be seen--not so as much in exact words as in themes and impressions--as more true. The truth that Cinderella couldn't actually have a fairy godmother was less important than the truth that there was something at work beyond herself and her circumstances that changed her from an unloved orphan to the wife of the prince. The truth that hobbits never once lived along side men and elves and saved the world from evil is less important than the truth that the very insignificant in our terms can be used by a greater power to do what the very strong had not been placed to do. The truth that the physical laws of here and now do not allow for people to do magic with wands or fly on broomsticks is not as important as the truth that there is, despite all odds, a greater power that causes weakness, imperfection, community, love, and selfless sacrifice to overpower evil even when it seems to have all the known power of earth. Stories reprioritize our thoughts toward understanding that the immediate world is not the ultimate truth. After the mindset of Hebrews 11 we are, in fact, rather alien to the here and now and are looking for a better country. Stories show us how to long for the country that is our real home.

A book review

2007-07-29T19:31:00.000-05:00

Recently I read a book called Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale by Frederick Buechner. I liked it very much and this is a review of it.

Let me present the group gathered together:
Pilate (executer of Jesus) is there, and the successful government man who has already shut himself off from the awfulness of the suffering he regularly sees in the news but still smokes three packs of cigarettes a day to numb the chewing of something inside him that says he really wishes he knew one way or the other whether there was a Truth. The two are not unlike. They could, in fact have been the same person.
Along with them is a pastor who has, in fact, been having an affair and may soon be found out. Homosexuals are there, and pregnant teenagers, and uninterested college students, and you--not you on your best face but you with the clamorings and silences of your life.
If this is the group gathered how will we talk about the gospel? How will the Gospel be a big enough Truth that is does not ignore or leave out what everyone knows but most would rather not say: that God is often seen in his absence and we are helpless and worn out by that? If there is a Gospel this big it must be as unexpected at Wiley Coyote picking himself up after being crushed by an anvil and continuing his chase. It will also have to be as absurd as supposing that Cinderella really did ride in that pumpkin to find a prince who chased her down with a golden slipper then married her. It is exactly to these people through these methods that this book shows the Gospel must be preached:
"If preachers or lecturers are to say anything that really matters to anyone including themselves, they must say it not just to the public part of us that considers interesting thoughts about the Gospel and how to preach it, but to the private, inner part too, to the part of us all where our dreams come from, both our good dreams and our bad dreams, the inner part where thoughts mean less than images, elucidation less than evocation, where our concern is less with how the Gospel is to be preached than with what the Gospel is and what it is to us. The must address themselves to the fullness of who we are and to the emptiness too, the emptiness where grace and peace belong but mostly are not, because terrible as well as wonderful things have happened to all of us."

Not being a writer, I only wish I knew if that came across as communication. To put it in more safely simple terms, this book was beautiful and rich. It captured both my imagination and my thoughts. I hope very much it changed them both, and in turn changed my outlook and responses. I highly recommend you read it. Find it online, that's a good place to buy books. Thus far it has been my favorite summer read and I fully expect it to remain on the top of my list of favorite books from here forward.

What have you been doing this summer?

2007-07-24T23:34:00.001-05:00

Blogging has been distinctly avoided from my summer activities lately. I now eye is cautiously, not as though it were another full thing to squeeze into a much too busy day, but as though it were one of those side acquaintances whose name I may remember during that time before or after summer RUF (college bible study) who must politely ask what I'm doing this summer. I set out my well compiled answered of those things that seem appropriate for one to do with a summer: some summer school, some work. As it happens more often than not (when there are no further inquiries into what classes I'm taking or where I'm working to change the subject to elementary education classes or church secretary work) the "list" seems rather meager for the accomplishments of two months and out stumbles the next best items I have to offer: some involvement with my church, some reading. Those may have hit closer to the truth of what was more important to me but as my list of church activities is unimpressive and my list of books read is small they seem less for having been said, for having to come out into words when they're not sure what to do with themselves anymore.

So, um, (I think I remember your name), I guess that's mostly what I've been doing. What are you doing?

I can't get any farther without suspecting that for all my social skills it's rather amusing how hard everyday life can be to put into words. Going to class this morning was an event. So was washing the dishes this evening while listening to music. As far as I can figure out the experience of the later is nearly inexpressible but maybe not less important than the former because of that. In that my summer has been very "everyday", something probably very good for me but not necessarily terribly familiar or comfortable. I go to class but I also make a sandwich to bring with me for lunch. I go to work and compile bulletins and such and I sit typing blog entries while drinking espresso with Irish cream in a small espresso cup a friend gave me for Christmas last year. I found and signed a lease on a small duplex near Belhaven and I sat in Borders and read children's books. I often find myself wishing for one of those few people with whom I can just sit and be without explaination and I'm hesitant right now at reading anyone's blog because I'm afraid they've said something about the ending of Harry Potter 7. This, of course, leaves alot unsaid, but somewhere in or under or through or beyond those sorts of things is what I've been doing this summer.

A new musician at Hogwarts

2007-07-18T10:30:00.000-05:00

As a kid I was in a plight:
Magician and musician sound alike.
Now with Andrew P. for
Hogwart's new Dumbledore
I find I still can't get things right.

Henri Nouwen on falling of the balance beam

2007-06-27T22:40:00.000-05:00

"You're in a room with a six-inch-wide balance beam in the center. Now the balance beam is only twelve inches off the fully carpeted floor. Most of us act as if we were blindfolded and trying to walk on that balance beam; we're afraid we'll fall off. But we don't realize we're only twelve inches off the floor. The spiritual director is someone who can push you off that balance beam and say, 'See? It's okay. God still loves you.'"
(Henri Nouwen)

Well I'll be. I've been operating under the idea that we needed to stay on those balance beams. I suppose I'll have to go somewhere from here with this.

Returning home come evening (often with the windows down)

2007-06-19T23:08:00.000-05:00

Driving east while the sun sets behind,
Behind the sky all ablaze unconfined,
But condensed in the mirror
Gleams a cloud-light pool--nearer,
Slighter figure but its weightiness not declined.

The first pebble seems smallish in influence...

2007-05-25T22:40:00.000-05:00

This post is the first of its lot
And I'll get to the point without rot:
I've not much to say
(Right now, anyway)
But successive posting will exude much more thought.