Glory of Kings

A Comparison: Why I am Religious

2012-01-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus

And the response:

Why I Love Religion, And Love Jesus

Piper and Chesterton

2012-01-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

Here is an excerpt from Piper's The Sovereign God of "Elfland", a delightful little essay on Chesterton.

It is a great irony to me that Calvinists are stereotyped as logic-driven. For forty years my experience has been the opposite. The Calvinists I have known (English Puritans, Edwards, Newton, Spurgeon, Packer, Sproul) are not logic driven, but Bible-driven. It’s the challengers who bring their logic to the Bible and nullify text after text. Branches are lopped off by “logic,” not exegesis.

Who are the great enjoyers of paradox today? Who are the pastors and theologians who grab both horns of every biblical dilemma and swear to the God-Man: I will never let go of either.

Not the Calvinism-critics that I meet. They read of divine love, and say that predestination cannot be. They read of human choice and say the divine rule of all our steps cannot be. They read of human resistance, and say that irresistible grace cannot be. Who is logic-driven?

For forty years Calvinism has been, for me, a vision of life that embraces mystery more than any vision I know. It is not logic-driven. It is driven by a vision of the ineffable, galactic vastness of God’s Word.

Let’s be clear: It does not embrace contradiction. Chesterton and I both agree that true logic is the law of “Elfland.” “If the Ugly Sisters are older than Cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) necessary that Cinderella is younger than the Ugly Sisters.” Neither God nor his word is self-contradictory. But paradoxes? Yes.

We happy Calvinists don’t claim to get the heavens into our heads. We try to get our heads into the heavens. We don’t claim comprehensive answers to revealed paradoxes. We believe. We try to understand. And we break out into song and poetry again and again.

Lee Strobel

2012-01-17T14:56:00.000-08:00

The Case for Christmas: A Journalist Investigates the Identity of the Child in the Manger by Lee Strobel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a very quick little read, and immensely worthwhile. I differ with him on a few points--I would guess that Matthew was written before Mark, and as far as a "Q" existing, I fail to see why it wouldn't be Matthew instead of some other source that's no longer extant. But other than this and a few other wholly non-essential points, I thought it was nearly flawless.

However, I did go into it with a slightly different view of what I'd be taking away: I was expecting something defending the date of Christmas, not the fact of Christ being the Messiah and the Gospels being accurate. But it is excellent for what it is, and is a great introduction to one of the great apologists of our time.

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Princess

2012-01-17T14:40:00.000-08:00

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well this was just great. "I do not always do what I ought, and I don't always try." I am now fully convinced that I will be reading a great deal of MacDonald for many, many years to come. It is the perfect book to read as a family, and I recommend it highly.

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Boniface Journal Intro test #1

2012-01-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

This is the first draft of an intro to the Boniface Hill Journal, which if you want, you can ask me and you'll probably never get it. But if you email me at my new official email, editor.boniface@yahoo.com, then I'll send you one. It'll be published monthly. I think.

All input is greatly desired, and welcomed.

It was an accident--the decimal kept scooting over, and I think Marty sat on the "print" button. So now, here we are. Unfortunate, I know, but it can't legally be helped, and, like thank-you letters or the plague, ignoring us just makes it worse. You might as well go ahead and meet us (for we are the men of Boniface Hill).
I am the editor, and my gravity-defying hair makes me almost as tall as the male of the species. Marty of the Rectory is the one holding hands with the dual-employed redhead: my stunning sister, his stunning wife, so that if either of them falls through a street-grate, the other can pull them out. Steve is furrier than the rest of us, and our initial experiments have failed to ascertain why. We think he might be a heretic, but when fed he usually behaves. And Cameron? Well, he appears to be some type of Dancing Roman Lobster. In any case, he is truly, deeply unique, winged and vortical, as majestic as a meerkat silhouetted in the sunset.
Next issue we shall introduce Jeremiah "Hobbit" Thompson, of whom descriptions are redundant, and the ever impressive Alwyn Swanepoel, who raises the average maturity by some occasionally tangible amount. He's from that continent with a desert, and he was singing bass long before I was born. We're also bringing in David "Davey" Jones. He has his own iPad and can grow a scary prophet beard.
We plan on showing up each month, and we welcome input and short selections of poetry and prose. We read them aloud at dinner parties, and they're often great hits. More fun than Telephone-Pictionary. We are here to be enjoyed, to provoke thought, and to exhort, and all of this to the Glory of God. We are the Christians of Boniface Hill, and we play with axes. Contact us at editor.boniface@yahoo.com.

Miscellaneous Prose

2011-12-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

“I’ve got his,” she said to the girl at the register, and placed the drinks on the counter. “He’s a regular. It’s three bucks, and he never takes his change. Sixteen ounce chai and an ice water, not too much ice?”

“Well obviously, but is the chai hot or cold—that’s the real question” the two-dollar tipper replied, with a cocked eyebrow and a crooked grin that revealed a couple of even more crooked teeth.

Sara faked deep thought and responded, “Well, it’s Thursday, which would indicate cold, but it’s misting outside, so I’d say hot, although it is the ninth, isn’t it? And you seem to have some absurd fascination with the number nine, and you got a cold one yesterday, so…”

“So which did you give me today?”

“Look at the cup. Definitely hot, with a bit of extra foam, but not so much that there’s only a shot of chai underneath a cup full of bubbles. Don’t you hate it when they do that?”

“Hot? You gave me a hot chai? And I was so hoping for cold. I’ve been looking forward to a cold chai all morning, and you made it hot?” He sighed with mock despair, and continued, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to reclaim my two-dollar tip from the very lovely—although rather confused—girl who’s still trying to figure out which button to push. New, are you, Gorgeous? About a week?”

Sara interrupted the half-formulated answer, “Oh, ignore him Hannah, he flirts with everyone. But I don’t think he’s ever really forgiven me for going and getting married to someone else, have you?”

“Forgiven you? When you give me a hot chai even though I wanted it cold? When you find fault with my brown mare and won’t buy my high flier?”

“And what’s that from?”

With a deeply injured air he responded, “Sense and Sensibility, the Emma Thompson one. Although that would make you Colonel Brandon. You might look good in a giant, floppy hat. Do you by any chance play piano?”

“Wait—isn’t Willoughby the one that says that?”

“You do know it—I’m impressed." He grinned. "You know I’ll never forgive you now, don't you? Isn’t your husband tall? So terrible: already a shortage of short girls for me to choose from, and then you go and marry some six foot two behemoth. It’s not natural; you obviously were intended to marry someone who was right around five six or seven. God will judge you for your rebellion. Unless Hannah there is wearing three inch heels.” Peering over the counter, “No chance of that is there, Freckles?”

The white skin of her face blending into her rusted hair, Hannah assured him that her shoes had no heels at all.

He sadly sighed. “And a red-head, too. Tragic.”

“Oh, go sit down and read your book. I’ll take my break in twenty minutes.”

Done With This Semester

2011-12-13T14:14:00.000-08:00

Epistle to Professor Victoria Arthur

A grade! My Teacher, leave all C’s and D’s
To trochees failed, or iambs that don’t please.
But first, since school demanded that I pay
Attention, you now have to read; I’ll pray.
Must I explain the words that soon you’ll see?
Why not. The final that was given me
Should demonstrate quite simply that I’ve learned:
Within the past four fortnights, have I earned
An A? A B? Or have my words, so frail,
So weak, so wrong, condemned me now to fail?
For learned I’m not, but have, for this next line
Does not have ten dull words, but only nine
(Although the one before it had one more).
The question, I suppose, is do they bore?
It’s hard for me to say; I’ll let you choose
For whether I say yea or nay I lose,
For if of God above and man below
Naught can be reasoned but from that we know,
I fear that I know naught. My reas’ning then
Had better far be bowed to other men,
Or even women, as the case may be.
But bore or no, my final is but three
Small poems. To justify myself unto The Man:
It took forever to make sure they’d scan.

It’s really not complex: I imitate
An author from each “age” that I would rate
As best in style, skill or simply fun:
An Irish monk, A. Pope and Satan won
(And if the Cath’lic monk can’t seem to cope
I’m sure he’ll damn the devil to the Pope).

And, now that that’s been said, I think I’m done;
Though with the wiser dead, I’ve just begun.

Blessings, and sincerest thanks. Class was great.

Jesse A. Broussard

Beowulf, Finalish Form

2011-12-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

Herein To the Mead-Wench Words are Writ

My lady list, from my word-hoard hear
Of the spear-armed Dane, Scyld Scefing’s son,
Of Scandian shores the savior strong,
Swinger of swords whose shield shall not shatter,
The breast of my boat beats the whale-road white,
The tale of my triumphs the storm riders sing:
How the Wyrd Wielder Wise has clothed me with strength,
The Slinger of Seas that enfold the fair fields
Has hallowed my heart and my sword stained with gore.
A Wielder of Wonders, a Welkin-warrior,
A ring-giver great, weregild winner:
My enemies mighty my arm has hewn down,
My flag home a haven, my borders unbattled,
My mead freely flows and well-roasted the meat
In the hall of my fathers. There grow faithful sons;
Liegemen are loyal, the bane of my foes,
But bane of the sea wyrm, bane of the land wyrm,
The sky wyrm’s bane is the blessed Bear.
Bone cage of demons my sword split assunder
And heart of Hrothgar by my battle-boast hoisted:
That Heorothealed would be of the kin of Cain,
That house wild wight haunted, high on the hill.

Night walker was wary, dread death-dealer doughty,
Wan under welkin was the whelp of Cain.
Lief was he my liege to kill, my thane he lifted his maw unto,
Rent his bone-cage, blood ran rivers,
Swallowed him whole, even head and hands.
But my hand grasped him grim, my fingers fast held him—
No battle brand bore I, no war weapon wielded,
Yet still his soul stole I, his blood did I spill,
But deeds of might were far from finished.
Grendel’s arm I hoisted high, his hand on Heorot
A welcome sign was made. But he was naught to what was next;
The viler, viscious dam, the water wight, the elfin evil.
Beneath the abyss she dwelt, deep under the depths,
But swam I swift to her home, the hell-born hoard,
And fought her with a sword that there I found,
A mighty blade that hacked her hide, her life blood freed,
And with her perished, the greatest of its deeds done at death.

So now I stand here, and what ask you of me,
A slayer of demons, of dragons death-dealer?
Mightiest of men, king over coasts?
Full twenty men’s might in each of my hands,
And this is the task you are asking of me?
“Tell you what I’ve learned in class this semester?”

Where be the brood of Cain?
Where the enemies that plague thee?
Where the house that’s haunted? Where the demon spawn?
Is there no dragon in this domain? No hell-born beast?
No task worthy of my prowess? No death walking in darkness?
Ask not of my aid in this trifling task,
This womanish work, this infant’s assignment.

My lady noble: my flagon fill, my mead let flow—
A dearth of beasts must be in this land
For my platter’s bottom I now perceive—
Mayhap another cow to his maker and our meat-board
Might be sent. And I? My sword I shall sharpen
And of the sea-born serpents that slew I Nine—Nine!
Of the tally of ten my tale lacks but one—
Of the sea-born serpents that slew I nine
In the years bygone shall I speak to thee.

And a Lewis-Flavored Milton, Wrecked by Me

2011-12-12T10:08:00.000-08:00

The Dyscorses of Satan and Other Fallen Beings, Recorded Upon Hys (Satan’s) Dyscouery of God Hauing Asyned Unto Mere, Mortal, Fallen Man Thys Fynal Asynment. Wryten in Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter as a Fool’s Attempt to Imitate John Milton, The Endyng Being Signyfide by the Introduction of a Septametrycal Fynal Lyne.

(Spelling has been modernized for the 2011 ed.)

Satan to the Fallen Host:
My Rebel Angels, down-cast, desolate,
Imprisoned deep within this frozen hell,
Removed from life and light by rage of Him
‘Gainst whom no power in heaven, earth or sea
Has yet His iron throne from Highest Heights
Thrown down, or rent the scepter from His hand;
‘Gainst whom nine nights, nine days we strove and failed
To win; and from Whose wrath we now so fain
Would flee, were there a realm in heaven, earth or sea
Wherein we from his Adamantine rage
Would loosed be. In vain. For I alone
Am second to Him to Whom no second else
Be known; am fire enfolding fire, Tenth
Hierarch, am Ahriman, The Morning’s Son,
And even I this end couldst not foresee.
But wiser I have grown, and if from bliss
We banned forever be, then let us
Now remove from Him who us removed
From where we fain would be. If unto earth
He us has cast, then we shall make it ours.
But now, this moment gather farther from
That scarlet city where the God that knows
Not ruth still mocks the broken beings that
Pray round his iron throne. Now come: for from
This day eternal war we shall begin
With that Almighty Foe and all His works.
Immortal our revenge: our yearning hate
Of Him and all He loves shall no end slake.

Now first for men—those vicious fools whose throats
Can bark for slaughter, cannot sing—that He
More foolish still is rumored more than life
To love (long since we cast them down to deep
Rebellion; hate. Indeed: to love the hate
Of Love Himself we taught him. Her? Deceived;
Both far have fallen. Now the fires of hell
Their feet shall singe, and soon their souls shall flame).

But now, today, what can we do? What war?
What plague? What cup hold we? What wine of wanton
Lust to wet their lips? What envy, strife,
Or drunken deep debauch shall fit our need?
What height of pride, or fool’s abyss, to what
Vile end shall man be flung? The battle’s filth
And strain? The bomb, the falling death? The moon,
A pallid green to break his worthless mind?
I fear that war will fail: Cuchulain’s bride is death;
No more shall Roland’s sword hew helm and bone,
And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon
While Helen’s eyes and Iseult’s lips are dust,
And dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow.
No, no war can kill all men: some win.
The plague is past, their God gave them a cure.
But, license, lust and lech’ry well we use,
And envy Cr'esus killed and killeth still
While strife lays low the hero’s home: no man
His bride well understands; far less his seed.
Still pride and folly walk as lovers lie:
Soft, intricate, entwined their limbs and lips.

But more we need—a deeper depth to delve,
A height that’s higher yet from which to fall
And then mankind will fully finished be—
And so we turn at last to lethargy:
The student’s bane—the final’s due today,
And last night Phil and Cait took John “Bones” Jones
And then his lethal elbow did to foolish,
Lazy Jesse introduce (till morning
Was at five, the hill with frost lay slain;
No slug was on the thorn, and God His wrath
Revealed). And now what hope has man? To death!
Destruction! Madness! All for naught! His endless
Labour lost! A final he shall fail
From lack of sleep (and for we wicked? Rest.)
Upon his bed he now does fling his form,
And in a heap his clothes about his fallen frame shall lie.

Students With Funny Haircuts Making Ugly Art

2011-12-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book I've found difficult to review. First off, I would not recommend it: there is rather pervasive language and several sexual scenes, but far more disturbing is the overall theme, which is the reason that I absolutely love it, and usually revisit it once every couple years. Also, Janet Fitch can really write, with a prose style reminiscent of a less dense Dostoevsky packed with unusual metaphors that are enough to catch a reader off guard without distracting him. A rare "gift" indeed, and one that is usually far from free.

The story centers around the twelve-year-old Astrid Magnussen, and takes place over the course of about seven years, chronicling her fall from a sweet, open, (relatively) innocent child into a dark, bitter, amoral young woman, and the beginning of her rising again. This story goes from grey to black to black with a glimmer of grey, as N. D. Wilson would say. Yet, it is a very realistic, very chilling account of the utter devastation that a parent can wreak upon the life of a child, as well as a fairly accurate, if brutal and somewhat selective, account of the California Social Services

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Beowulf Draft 1

2011-12-07T11:33:00.000-08:00

My final assignment in English class was to simply demonstrate that I learned something this semester. It had no form required: it could be lesson plans for teaching, a paper on anything; I was given loose reins, free reign, a bit betwixt my teeth and a whole mountain to fall down.

I decided that I didn't want to do a final project. So I didn't. But, not daring to simply refuse, I instead assigned it to three other characters, and am turning in their responses to the teacher. The first is Beowulf, to be followed by John Milton's Satan, and Alexander Pope shall scathingly bring up the rear.

Here is the first draft of part 1; input is desired.

Beowulf is Assigned this Final Project

My lady list, from my word-hoard hear
Of the spear-armed Dane, ScyldScefing’s son,
Of Scandian shores the savior strong,
Swinger of swords whose shield shall not shatter,
The breast of my boat beats the whale-road white,
The tale of my triumphs the storm riders sing:
How the Wyrd Wielder Wise has clothed me with strength,
The Slinger of Seas that enfold the fair fields
Has hallowed my heart and my sword stained with gore.
A Wielder of Wonders, a Welkin-warrior,
A ring-giver great, weregild winner:
My enemies mighty my arm has hewn down,
My flag home a haven, my borders unbattled,
My mead freely flows and well-roasted the meat
In the hall of my fathers. There grow faithful sons;
Liegemen are loyal, the bane of my foes,
But bane of the sea wyrm, bane of the land wyrm,
The sky wyrm’s bane is the blessed Bear.
Bone cage of demons my sword split assunder
And heart of Hrothgar by my battle-boast hoisted:
That Heorothealed would be of the kin of Cain,
That house wild wight haunted, high on the hill.

Night walker was wary, dread death-dealer doughty,
Wan under welkin walked the whelp of Cain.
Lief was he my liege to kill, my thane he lifted his maw unto,
Rent his bone-cage, blood ran rivers,
Swallowed him whole, even head and hands.
But my hand grasped him grim, my fingers fast held him—
No battle brand bore I, no war weapon wielded,
Yet still his soul stole I, his blood did I spill,
And when his dam to avenge him came,
Her home her tomb was made by my right hand.

So now I stand here, and what ask you of me,
A slayer of demons, of dragons death-dealer?
Mightiest of men, king over coasts?
Full twenty men’s might in each of my hands,
And this be the task you are asking of me?
To “Tell you what I’ve learned in class this semester?”

Where be the brood of Cain?
Where the enemies that plague thee?
Where the house that's hight haunted? Where the demon spawn?
Is there no dragon in this domain? No hell-born beast?
No task worthy of my prowess? No death walking in darkness?
Ask not of my aid in this trifling task,
This woman’s work, this infant’s assignment.
My lady noble: my flagon fill, my mead let flow—
A dearth of beasts must be in this land
For my platter’s bottom I now perceive—
Mayhap another cow to his maker and our meat-board
Might be sent. And I? My sword I shall sharpen
And of the sea-born serpents that slew I Nine—Nine!
Of the tally of ten my tale lacks but one—
Of the sea-born serpents that slew I nine
In the years bygone shall I speak to thee.

Anniversary

2011-12-05T11:41:00.000-08:00

How is it that time continues to cycle a full five years after the world has ended?

Literary analysis

2011-12-01T00:55:00.001-08:00

Here is the poetry reviewed:

In vain, in vain—the all-composing hour
Resistless falls; the Muse obeys the power.
She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold
Of Night primeval, and of Chaos old! 630
Before her Fancy’s gilded clouds decay,
And all its varying rainbows die away.
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires,
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.
As one by one, at dread Medea’s strain, 635
The sick’ning stars fade off th’ ethereal plain;
As Argus’ eyes, by Hermes’ wand opprest,
Closed one by one to everlasting rest;
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might,
Art after Art goes out, and all is night. 640
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of casuistry heap’d o’er her head!
Philosophy, that lean’d on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, 645
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!
See Mystery to Mathematics fly!
In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires. 650
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restor’d;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; 655
And universal Darkness buries all.

And here is the review:

Jesse Broussard
English 341, literary analysis:
The Dunciad

Alexander Pope
Prophet Without Honour

Alexander Pope was indubitably an heir of the great metaphysical poets, such as Donne, Herbert, Marvel and others, but his mind and writings leant far, far back to the great and ancient epic works of Homer, Horace, Vergil, Juvenal and their like. Erudite as Eliot, prescient as a Puritan and disdainful as a Duke, Pope was famed for his impatience even more than for his genius, and one of the surest—if least pleasant ways—of achieving immortality was to prick his vanity with a pin. As a result of this, and of being born in a time when character was at least as interesting as creation, his person often overshadowed his poetry, and this is something that our generation of readers and critics, with all our hindsight, hasn’t managed to shake. So we often tend to see The Dunciad as a diatribe, rather than a prophecy or social critique, and Pope merely as a savage little monster, rather than a seer or social philosopher. Which is all fine and dandy, save that it truncates our view like inverted blinders on a horse: we see the sides, but not the front; we see the scenery, but not where we’re going; we see the mockery, but not the point. We miss out on so, so much of his purpose when we view The Dunciad as a personal poem instead of what I will maintain that it truly is.

The Dunciad was not aimed at his critics and personal enemies, not even at Lewis Theobald, King of the Dunces (who entitled his Shakespeare Restored with the somewhat insensitive full title of Shakespeare restored, or, A specimen of the many errors, as well committed, as unamended, by Mr. Pope: in his late edition of this poet. Designed not only to correct the said edition, but to restore the true reading of Shakespeare in all the editions ever yet published), whose edition of Shakespeare was actually better than Pope’s. No, The Dunciad was written primarily as a eulogy for what we call the age of Renaissance literature in England, and a foretelling and critique of the movement that was growing up to replace it (although the medium was entirely suited to Pope’s endless quest to have the last word in any argument). I’ll only be dealing with the latter portion: the prophecy and critique.

But to see the general, broad sweep of his argument, we first have to dissociate it from the pointed personal aim in his argument. Otherwise we have the two aspects of Pope’s poem blended: first, to humiliate his enemies (personal), and second, to state where the new movement, the (at the time) “modern” movement would lead.

So, here’s for the personal first. Pope completed his first version of The Dunciad in 1729 when he was 41, but it was a full fourteen years before he was finished tinkering with it, and he died the year after his final publication. However, he continually changed the King of the Dunces, so the poem transcended at least this character: the character came and went, but the poem remained. Yet he was bitterly disappointed by this time of his life. Long since dead was his (alleged) affection for Lady Montagu. His love for Martha Blount is doubtlessly somewhat embellished by overzealous authors—biography, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and there is no exiguity of events that cannot be filled by sufficient suppositions of fancy—but we know that he did say she had “wit, good humour and a poet;” he did bequeath her 1,000 pounds, sixty books and more; we know that he almost certainly did love her. But even the wildest speculation has never construed her feelings as anything beyond benevolent indifference. So he was disappointed in his hopes for marriage at least twice, and was left with but two lasting impressions to leave: poetry and a grave. So he was surely looking to leave something meaningful behind, and this is another aspect of the man’s genius: in all of his terse vitriolic tirades, he never lost his view of the transcendent.

By his final publication of The Dunciad, he had lost all of his literary allies (who were also dear friends): he had buried Parnell in another life, back in 1718, John Gay in 1732, Dr. Arbuthnot in 1735, and he had watched both Atterbury and Swift go into exile (Swift’s was self-imposed). The already savagely embittered Pope found himself alone among enemies, and among the last of the rearguard still resisting the artistic innovations being birthed all around him. The Renaissance was waning, the rebirth of the epics of Homer and Vergil, Horace and Juvenal and their ilk; ink of Voltaire and Hume, Walpole and Johnson, Rousseau and Kant was either still wet on the page or the quill. The world was rapidly changing, and the great satirists were dying out (Swift would follow Pope in less than a year). It was not yet the era of the Romantic poets, who would so fully repudiate the indisputable genius of Pope as to debate whether he could even be considered a poet, but that age was dawning as Pope’s was “dying with a dying fall,” and one perceptive as Pope could not help but notice.

So what did he write in this, his final work? He bestows uncomfortable immortality upon his enemies—we generally wouldn’t even know of them outside of his tribute to their idiocy (take heed to the caliber of your competitor: here a man’s entire life consists of a Norton Anthology footnote explaining that he was an ass)—so he has truly succeeded: he got the last word. There is no denying that the machine-gun rhythm of names dotting, even peppering the page is a great part of the work, and a great reason for its composition. But this is Pope simply enjoying himself. The overarching theme is the effect of what Pope views as the “movement of the new,” and that, to Pope’s mind, is the death of not only literature, but all art, and not only art, but an entire culture: art, truth, philosophy, science, mystery, religion and morality.

For a demonstration of this, look at his conclusion on page 2565 in our Norton Anthology, lines 629, 630, 639, 640: “the sable throne behold / Of night primeval, and of Chaos old! ... Thus at her felt approach, and secret might, / Art after Art goes out, and all is Night.” He then goes on to describe the individual effects of this “modern” movement as opposed to his classical approach in lines 641-656 (which I’ll here review, but not quote, in their entirety): stark Truth is buried beneath convoluted sophistry—Plato’s Gorgias was a lesson he didn’t think this new age had learned; Boethius’ lovely, sing-song Consolations of Philosophy is obviated: instead of the assumption of God as a foundation, and the derivation of “how should we then live” from that solid platform, he sees that the ponderous weight of philosophy has dispensed with the platform and is attempting to levitate: Philosophy, which has to stand somewhere in order to get anywhere, is no longer accepting God as the “Uncaused Cause,” but is attempting to decipher the world from our senses alone (“And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!”). Hume’s decimation of the inductive principle is the result of this. Or is it? (Bad joke.)

He then turns to the attempt to explain “Mystery,” the unexplained, by a reliance on math. Looking back at an age that produced Wittgenstein, Whitehead, Godel and innumerable others, as well as the greatest geometrical breakthrough in two and a half millennia—demonstrating that Euclid’s postulate—for any line “A” and a point “B” not on that line, one and only one line parallel to “A” may be drawn through point “B”—that this postulate was actually false, leading to Lobachevskian Geometry and Reimannian Geometry—I would say that this was as close to a prophet as you can get without falling into his beard.

The final vestige of the old world that he sees falling is religion, and with it morality: both in public and in private the religious are ashamed or simply afraid. In this his genius is expressed to a breathtaking extreme: not only did he say what the result would be, but he also got the order right, and here we are, living in two couplets of his poem, of his prophecy. Religion has not so much fallen as it has begun to saunter vaguely downwards—although we do have a new generation of what must simply be called militant atheists: Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, et al, and they are all from religious families. But the Christian / Catholic religion that Pope spoke of still stands, and with it Christian / Catholic morality, though again, they are in a rapid decline.

Of this there cannot be doubt: Pope is vindicated. 250 years ago this brilliant, mordant and vicious little beast, this little monster, told us in explicit detail what would happen, and it is now happening. The Judeo-Christian order that Pope spoke of—the one that ruled the world, that founded Christendom and overshadowed all of Europe, as well as huge chunks of Asia and Africa, for two millenia—that order has never been in such disfavour or in such decline in England, Europe and America as it is now.

The question should then arise: what happens next?

Lo! thy dread Empire, CHAOS! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And Universal Darkness buries All.

From Bobbi Jo

2011-11-10T19:26:00.001-08:00

A good friend of mine, former classmate and sister to a former roommate wrote this, and I thought it was more than worth sharing. I'd force people to read it if I could, but instead, I'm hiding it safely away where none shall ever find it (unless they happen to be looking for a particularly unusual book, or researching ants).

In any case, it is something that delights me, makes me somewhat envious, and makes me smile at the same time. Especially these things: Robert looking meaningfully at his (formerly rambunctious, now suddenly attentive) twins, then at his bedroom door, then rather inquiringly back to the (now excessively well-behaved) boys who have found that playing with their cars on the floor in very hushed tones is exactly what they'd been wanting to do for some time; or the delightful pictures that Naomi gave her big brother when he was off at school (that lived on our fridge longer than we lived in the house), or the frozen dinners that seemed to breed in our fridge whenever the Dahlin sisters stopped by (they assumed that being men, we couldn't cook. They were right), or abruptly encountering an almost five foot two Maria while expecting a five foot five Maria when flat shoes were required at a dance, or suddenly finding out that Laura could read music for guitar, that John was one of the most incisively intelligent and funny guys I'd ever met, and that Bobbi's poetry had the capacity to simply level anyone with half a soul. Though, my best memory of all was looking down a table that wouldn't have been out of place in Heorot, and seeing every place (and then a few) filled, every face expectantly looking towards their father, and knowing in that moment that the loss of this is the most desolate, shattering blow that our life-hating generation could ever have suffered, for this indeed is one of the greatest of God's billowing blessings in this overflowing world.

As a pastor has said:

"Wombs are a deathbed, nurseries are barren,Men lie with others as though they were women.Fruitlessness calls on the gods to preserve it,Gods in their anger bestow pale madness.O Jesu, defend us, Lord Jesus have mercy."

How many siblings do you have??by Bobbi Jo

Sometimes people ask how many siblings I have, and then act like they wish they hadn’t asked. No matter how matter-of-factly I answer, in how soft of a voice, or how I ease the blow by casually saying seven brothers and leaving a thoughtful pause for them to adjust before mentioning the nine sisters.

The eyebrows jump straight up a few inches off their usual resting place, like a cat that has been batting nonchalantly at a still mouse it assumes is dead, when the mouse suddenly gives the reaction it has been prodded for.

The mouth unhinges for a moment, offering a nice view of the teeth, tongue, uvula and pharynx, and sometimes a case of muteness attacks for a few seconds after this anatomical display is closed.

The eyes – well, you have seen the cartoons where the eyeballs nearly leave the face because their saucer-like size makes it hard to fit between the other features. Like that.

Then the comments. People are amazingly quick at putting us into a box, a category – no matter how obviously empty their category for Extremely Large Family has been up until this point. They assume my parents must be uneducated, or Mormon, or hate the environment, or hate their children who obviously are harmed by having to share a bedroom with brothers or sisters.

But sometimes people are cool enough to ask the right kinds of questions, ones that reveal that yes, they may think it is all a little crazy, but they are interested in how this kind of crazy works for a real life family. One of the best questions I’ve heard was from a kid, about a week ago. “But how do you all use the bathroom and take showers in the morning? Do you have to get up in the middle of the night to do it before everyone else?”

I laughed. But the more I thought about that one, the more ironically true it was. My sisters have some kind of system worked out among themselves so that they all end up with shiny clean hair every day, and when I go back to visit I have to either wait until an hour after breakfast when everyone else is done and off doing chores and the water has had time to heat up again, or grab my shower before bed each night – but then I have to fight my brothers for a chance at the hot water and towels.

There are too many things about life in a big family, too many even about this family in particular, for me to answer what it’s like to be part of it in just a few sentences of conversation. It has been a life, not merely an experience. But I still try to explain what it has been like.

There are not enough bathrooms. There never have been, but at least there are 2 now. Standing in line at the bathroom door warps all sense of time, proportion, common kindness, and etiquette. People have been known to accuse others of taking hours in the shower when it has been far closer to a quarter of an hour in reality. People have been known to knock, go to the other bathroom and knock there, then go back and knock on the first one again in case that might help. Some of our number have tried to cut in line and been forcibly removed or seriously chastened for their cheating. Brushing teeth is quite a community affair, since you are extremely selfish if you clean your pearly whites with the door shut all alone when 6 or 8 people can pass the toothpaste and coordinate movements around a sink and be so much more efficient.

There are so many dishes. You would not believe the heaps. A mother would never get them done if she didn’t have so many people to help clean them up. So maybe it evens out. Just don’t keep thinking or you might realize that if she didn’t have that many people to clean up after, she wouldn’t need that much help with the cleaning up. But then we would miss the crazy after-dinner mess that is Mom making coffee and a couple sisters clearing the table and someone rinsing the dirty dishes on the counter where Naomi is trying to mix up cookies; and Lydia is emptying the dishwasher of lunch dishes and reaching in front of whoever is at the wash sink to put the glasses away while Elsi is trying to sweep the floor for the night, and the damp towels, and the splashed water, and the bumps and dodges as you step back to make room for someone to pass and right into someone else working behind you, and the conversation that never stops and the collaborative love and labor that warms us all.

Sometimes we want to play Monopoly but there are too many people. But that just means we play Monopoly and Rummy and Battleship and War all at once, and what a din around the crowded dining table.

You are never in the house alone, which means you can usually find someone to do an activity with you or answer a question for you. This is why, sometimes, a little brother will come up with an extremely pitiable look on his face, stand there so quietly and then ask in the sweetest, pleading voice, “Will YOU play chess with me?” This also means you can never BE alone in the house, which can be another problem altogether (unless you go in the bathroom, lock the door, and ignore whatever knocks, shouts or desperate pleas you hear from the other side).

I didn’t grow up doing sleepovers with friends (though I seem to remember one of them). I don’t think I missed it, though, because I shared a room with enough friends already, and we could never go to sleep without sharing our lives (Bible readings and frustrations, uproarious laughter and books like A Damsel in Distress, thoughts on movies we’d just watched, and the talent and attractiveness [or lack of it] in the actors, and all kinds of stories).

We didn’t have to invite a bunch of friends over to play volleyball.

We didn’t always fit into our vehicles. Actually, that isn’t right; I mean we didn’t always have the correct number of seatbelts for the number of passengers. We used the CJ5 jeep until we fit a Chevy Blazer and had to upgrade to that, used the Blazer until we fit a 12-passenger van, and used *that* until we were just the right size for the 15-passenger van, which we stubbornly used even when (for a while) we could have used a couple more seats. But seatbelts can be shared, and policemen thankfully can’t always count heads as the cars pass on the street, and no one was ever injured or ticketed for the way we traveled around.

Eating meals out was a rarity with that many mouths to buy plates for. Such a rarity that was almost nonexistent. This meant that we thought stopping to get hamburgers on the way home from Spokane was quite the treat, and when we did, we made it a party that I’m sure the employees were quite astounded at.

We don’t draw names for Christmas shopping, which means there is quite a pile of gifts under our tree – or perhaps I should say around our tree, for they certainly don’t fit beneath the branches no matter how fat a tree we can find, and they have been known to pile up to a ridiculous height. Sometimes it is the better part of wisdom for 2 or 3 of us to partner up and buy gifts for the other 14 or 15 of us, and sometimes one ends up buying one gift for the older girls to share, one for the boys, and one for the little girls, but there is none of that nonsense of Which sibling am I actually going to give something to. Every one is a face and two hands at Christmas, and there is almost nothing better than watching the eyes of a little brother as you approach him with a wrapped box, and place it into hands that can’t wait to pull the paper away and drop the card and pull out what you chose for him because you know him.

It means a lot of gifts. It means a lot of birthday cakes around the year, including 5 in January alone. It means heaps of laundry and two baskets full of unmated socks. It means sharing chores, and laps, and time with parents, and so many good times. It means a lot of coordination, and budgeting, and loving one another in the day to day. Just like any family.

Seventeen is a big number. But we are not numbers from the inside of the family. That is why I don’t realize how shocking it is for people to meet us. And that is why I think of a family of 7 children, and a family of 9 children, and sometimes even families of 5 children, as ‘big families’ without a thought to the difference in headcount from my family. We number 17, and it is unusual, and it is amazing that our parents have done this with their lives; but we are actually just siblings and friends, like you and your brothers and sisters probably are. And the craziness is good, and the goodness is crazy. This is my family.

More N. D. Wilson

2011-11-04T15:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.q13fox.com/videogallery/65871515/News/ND-Wilson

Huge

2011-11-02T13:00:00.001-07:00

I grant that "train" may not be the best translation for the crucial verb in Prov. 22:6. May I suggest (dynamic equivalence) "baptize"?

The verb is hanak. It is the verb from which we get the derivative Hanukkah, which means dedication or consecration. It refers to inauguration or dedication, usually in a cultic setting. The dedication of Solomon's altar took seven days (2 Chron. 7:9). The temple of Ezra's day was consecrated in a similar way (Ezra 6:17). It can even be used of the dedication of private houses (Dt. 20:5). The rededication of the Temple in the Maccabean period gave that holiday the name used for it today.

So, admittedly, train is not the best translation, but a better translation hardly weakens the point I am seeking to make.

Test #2: 16th and 17th Centuries

2011-11-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

I'm still lazy, and typing in the question is entirely too time consuming.

Jesse Broussard
English 341
Exam #2
10.31.11

1, 5). (Found in the Faith in Conflict section.) The Roman Catholic Church had actually redefined charity into the realm of works, largely based off of the passage in James (pure religion consists of helping the sick and needy, therefore, acts of charity equate to religion, etc). So charity had the connotation of being something that needed to be done, as opposed to the “purer” state of mind or heart, and when the Protestants were translating the Bible, they decided to jettison the connotation, and the denotation necessarily went with it.

As far as why the Authorized Version (King James) went with the translation “charity,” the consensus view is that it was due to the moderation of the English Protestantism—they weren’t trying to completely ditch anything that remotely connected to Catholicism, but did want a full break from it. There were tons of Catholics living in England, and the general view of King James was undoubtedly live and let live (especially considering his own rather loose interpretation of the mandates against homosexuality, etc), and, rather than have yet more persecution, the Protestant translators were apparently willing to allow some “compromise.”

Personally, I’m not entirely sure that it wasn’t (in part, at least) due to the somewhat odd (though incredibly brilliant and wholly foundational to our speaking of the English language through to the present day) adherence of Tyndale to the Hebrew, Greek and Vulgate texts. The Greek has αγαπη, στοργη, ερος, and φιλια (agape, storge, eros, philia). However, the Latin translation (from Jerome) of αγαπη is “caritas,” and Tyndale typically translated caritas as charity, probably due to the etymology of the word. Charity=charitas, so “charity” would almost certainly have been derived from the “caritas” of Jerome’s Biblia Sacra Vulgata.

2, 10). Christopher Marlowe, Faustus. This is the section when Faustus is deciding that he has mastered most everything that the natural world has to offer (logic/philosophy, medicine, law, and finally, divinity) and he is making the decision that the supernatural world is where his interest lies. This “weighing of the options” leads to him selling his soul and, due to his lack of repentance, being damned for all eternity. This is just after he has decided that divinity leads to a simple “Che sara, sara,” and to bid “Divinity, adieu!” So this power, like a carrot in front of a donkey (or at least an ass), is what convinces Faustus to abandon all that is good, and, in Marlowe’s brilliant turn of phrase, “Here Faustus, try thy brains to gain a deity.” This avarice and pride—that he wants power so desperately, and that he thinks divinity not out of reach—is what completes the foundation of his destruction.

3, 12). John Milton, Paradise Lost. This, one of my favorite passages in all of Milton, is his interpretation, even his imputation, of the actions and emotions of Satan. Here is brilliant, stubborn, impotent and arrogant rage revealed. This is the type of mind that would be a suicide bomber, or that would rig his home with explosives so that when he was killed he wouldn’t go alone. This is the defining mentality behind petty, vindictive evil, and when Milton attributes this to Satan, he determines the entirety of the events in the rest of his Paradise Lost. If Satan has adopted this type of mentality, this type, as Tolkien would say, of reckless hate, this desire to simply destroy and damage everything that he possibly could, then all of the evil in the world is easily explained. Yet, the complex genius of Milton does not simply write it all off on Satan, he goes further (Biblically) and attributes sin and death to mankind’s free will (see #6), though generously helped along by this implacable hatred of Satan, this desire to simply watch the world burn.

What fascinates me is that this would so often be a virtue, if applied in the right direction. Were it a navy seal being tortured, it would be noble, honourable and wholly praiseworthy. Were it shipwreck survivors, it would be necessary (minus the hate, perhaps). It is solely due to the object against which the struggle is aimed that the deplorable state of the struggle is due, and I think this is one of Milton’s points: water can never rise u than its source, and neither can actions rise higher than the motives that give them birth, and good virtues defending evil motives become themselves corrupted by the evil of their aim. And, carried further, the simple fact would be that, if you are mistaken, pray that you’re a total screw-up. After all, sighting in on the wrong person isn’t quite so bad if you can’t shoot worth an Oompa-Loompa's chances of riding the Zipper.

4, 7). Technically, it was probably Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, but all right, I’ll say Willem Shakespere’s King Lear. This is the great destructive decision of Lear, the decision that births all of the other evil that he experiences and that leads to his prompt and his daughter’s untimely death (heh—not a comedy). He decides that he wants all of the benefits of being a king with none of the responsibilities. He decides to take a vacation, an early retirement, and to lazily enjoy his wealth and privilege while leaving the running of his kingdom to his children. But, as Cordelia could not “heave her heart into her throat,” he leaves the running of his kingdom to the two daughters (though technically to their husbands) that are power-hungry and grasping little hags, the two daughters that turn him from their homes (or set such stipulations for accepting him in that they know he could not accept) and end up killing each other/themselves.

Had he not attempted to retain “the name and all the additions to a king,” it is wholly possible that it would not have ended so badly. Had he been willing to lose all: both the kingship and the status of being a king, his grasping daughters probably would have just killed themselves off, and not cost him his life. Had he not surrendered anything, he would have died old and (relatively) happy, and WS would be a lot more boring.

5, 6). Another of Milton’s from Paradise Lost. Here, we are presented with an unusual view of God, in which God is sovereign and omniscient, but also somewhat of an angsty God. I have to say that it’s a greatly refreshing change from our typical castrated hippie-on-pot effeminate “can’t we all just get along?” god, but it’s still quite interesting on the momentary tangent that I’m taking, chasing the rabbit down the hole. As your sign outside your office says, and I think it’s from Lewis’ introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation, reading old books is quite beneficial, not because dead authors weren’t ever wrong, but because they were wrong in different ways than we would tend to be wrong, and having the sharp wind of the ages blasting through our own minds is an excellent way to clear out the dust that our own age wouldn’t ever notice. Here we are presented with a very different view of God than we typically assume. Our modern age Christians seem to view God as primarily nice, and niceness is of course the chief end of all things (therefore we can tolerate everything but intolerance, which is just downright—dare we say it?—not nice), which irritates me to no end, while Milton has no problem offering God a spine and a touch of a temper toward us ingrates.

But leaving that alone and returning to the actual question, this is the section where God foretells what man will do. Man will listen to Satan; disobey God and fall from grace, even though God gave him everything he needs to stand. This is the central fact of the poem: man was able to stand: he had all that he needed in order to remain righteous, but he was also able to fall, and did, and had to be restored by God. Here is how Paradise could be lost or secured, and from the outset, God knew that it would be lost, yet He allows it to happen, and this is the chief tension of the poem, and of life in general. God entrusted the world to man knowing that we would break it and ourselves, so that He could heal it and us, hence the title of the second half of the poem.

6, 9). This section of John Donne’s 19th Elegy (To His Mistress Going to Bed) is a quite delightful section of one of his most explicitly bad (as in misbehaving, not poorly written) poems. He refers to her as his America, his newly discovered land, his unexplored, untamed land. He also refers to her as his kingdom, and says she’s best when by one man manned (a fancy way of saying he preferred that she not spread it around), his mine of precious stones, and his empire. His overall theme in this is that she is first, foremost and solely his: “How blest am I in this discovering thee!” If she’s America, it’s because he’s discovered her, and she is virgin territory. She is land that belongs to him, she is a mine of wealth that he owns, she is a kingdom that he alone rules, she is wholly his, and it is in this, in this belonging to him that she is all of these things. Were she not his, or even not solely his, she would be none of these things to him. Her value to him is derived from the exclusivity of their relationship. She isn’t England, that everyone lives in, but America, and he has just discovered her. She is a mine that he alone delves, an empire etc.

I would just like to point out that this poem has probably the most inappropriate line in all of Donne’s poetry: “Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.”

7, 3). These words were spoken by Charles the First, shortly before his execution, are recorded in The Moderate, Number 28, and they really do strike at the heart of the issue of putting a king (especially your own) on trial. It comes down entirely to authority: does the king rule autonomously, or by the permission of an assembly of his subjects? I still think that the execution of King Charles the First was nothing short of a judicial murder, and I think that because his question could not be satisfactorily answered. He was the highest court of appeal in England, until a jury of his subjects had him killed. Worse still, they didn’t have him killed because of some great crime that he committed, but because of the necessary symbolism of the act: if the king could be tried, found guilty and executed, then he was ruler not by divine right, but by permission of the people. If the people could kill him, then he obviously ruled to serve the people, and if he performed his duty unsatisfactorily, he could be held to account. If his subjects had the authority to bring him to trial—an authority that, in this instance, they seized without lawful precedent—then the king’s question could have been answered. But they did not have that authority, unless we are simply going by a “might makes right” system of ethics, in which case nothing that ever happened was wrong.

Rather ironically, it is solely due to the fact that the king was being executed that I even have the texts with which to judge the executors as mistaken, as the king would most likely have suppressed or edited the story, had it had a different outcome. As it is, it placed the people of this time and the following times in a position of authority even over the king, until the royal family is now no more than a figurehead, a symbol of a decayed, outmoded and wholly obsolete monarchy, an obviated reliquary of an almost forgotten time. And the unlawful execution of Charles the First was, if not the beginning of this trend—that could be traced back to the Magna Carta—at least the great cresting of the first wave of this incoming tide of egalitarianism.

8, 13). This delightful text, that all twelve year old boys delight in reading to their parents over the dinner table (“but mom, it’s literature…”) was written by the exquisite Edmund Spenser in Book the First of his Faerie Queene, his attempt to copy Dante by writing an epic in the Lingua Franca of his people.

The difficulty with this text, other than the obvious problems that the more squeamish might have with the image so skillfully conjured, is interpreting exactly what Spencer meant. After all, we could easily interpret every single monster in The Faerie Queene as the Roman Catholic Church, but is that his meaning? He names this, the first monster, Errour (in my opinion, out of sympathy for struggling college students), so if we take his interpretation, we can’t narrowly interpret this as the Roman Catholic Church, but it is responsible exegesis, not extravagant isogesis, to read it thus: the Roman Church is full of error, and it is with this that it will assault you. Hence, the books and papers in her vomit (which Norton reminds us may be Catholic propaganda against the Faerie Queene herself, Queen Elizabeth). This would also be supported by the description of the monster: half holds the semblance of a woman, as the bride of Christ (the Church), but half is a serpent, as the enemy of Christ in particular and mankind as a whole (“you shall bruise his heel, but he shall bruise your head…”). Finally, if we do accept this as the Protestant Spencer’s description of the Roman Church, we find that he is accusing them (most likely) of witchcraft (Macbeth’s double, double, toil and trouble / fire burn and cauldron bubble makes much of frogs and toads, and his contemporary Spencer would have used the same imagery for the same purpose), as well as “great lumpes of flesh and gobbets raw,” which (as we mentioned in class) could be alluding to the Catholic Eucharist, or, as I would tend to lean, to the Protestant martyrs, those the Roman Church had “consumed.”

In fact, when we consider them, other explanations simply don’t cover the facts. Personal error doesn’t account for the shape of the monster; nothing but error accounts for the name of the monster, and only the Roman Church accounts for both name and shape. The significance of this is that it is the first monster that Redcrosse Knight encounters and defeats: therefore, in Spencer’s mind, when one is courting Truth (Una), the first step is to destroy the error of the Roman Church (and get thee Protestant). The rest of the poem follows suit, and in just as detailed a fashion.

Test #1, Middle Ages

2011-11-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid I don't feel like typing in the questions, but here are the answers to the things you didn't know that you didn't know (unless you knew the latter, in which case the former doesn't apply, whereas if you knew the former, the latter remains valid).

Enjoy (or suffer, just as you please).

J. A. Broussard
9.26.11
English 341, Exam #1: Middle Ages
V. Arthur

1). Four: Latin, French (technically often called Anglo-Norman), Celtic languages (Cymraeg, Gaeilge, etc), and English.

Short Answer

12). This one first, as I’m afraid that there’s a typo: line three should read “great mead-hall,” not “great mean-hall” (my spell-checker hates it too). It is of course Beowulf, and is the old section of Beowulf. I subscribe to the belief that there are two separate authors of Beowulf: the old oral tradition complete with Beowulf killing Grendelet mater familias, and the more recent section of Beowulf ruling his kingdom and killing a dragon, which was most likely composed as an elegy upon the death of a king. This sample is speaking of Hrothgar as he is deciding to build Heorot, which is later besieged by Grendel, who likes his Dane snacks raw.
Heorot itself is significant in part due to the high demands of hospitality of the time. Due to the fact that Napoleon Buonaparte moved his army in roughly the same manner and speed that Αλεχανδρος Μαγνος of Macedon did 2,000 years earlier, anyone traveling between the two would need to stop frequently, and a “castle” of the type of Heorot, complete with gallons of mead, all the fresh meat you could want and a king with a reputation as a generous “ring-giver” would be viewed by ancient travelers the way my father-in-law views any Best Western with an Olive Garden across the street: life’s too short for bad motels and cheap food. This in turn would cause his own fame to spread even farther and wider than it already was, which would be a huge boon to him, for what king doesn’t like to be revered? And what great king doesn’t hope to go down in history?

8). To follow suit, I shall continue with the much maligned Bear (Beo=bee and Wulf=hunter, therefore the delightful kenning “Beowulf” is a way of saying “Bear,” which seems peculiarly apt for a man with the strength of twenty men in each hand). This passage is describing the demon-spawn Grendel, who not only kills the Danes, which is bad enough, but can’t be got at to pay for them, which is simply intolerable. It reminds me of the Far Side where the indignant parents are saying to the witch “Let me get this straight: we hired you to babysit our children for the night, and you cooked and ate both of them?”
One of the big issues with Grendel is that he refused to pay the blood-price for the people that he ate (though we don’t really have the impression that he was asked; those that could speak to him typically had other things on their mind. Like his teeth.). In this culture, unexpected death was more prevalent and long life more uncertain than today, so if a man was killed by accident or intent, the killer could be held liable for the “blood-price” of the victim, money to be paid to the family, typically collected by those responsible for them. In this case, the responsible person would often be Hrothgar, so his inability to collect the blood-price from Grendel was a great dishonor to him.

5). This is a quote from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which Gawain is put into a rather awkward position. He is commanded to stay at home by his host, and then the host goes hunting while his wife attempts to seduce Gawain. Gawain gets to try not to offend her while also attempting not to end up sleeping with her, the latter of obviously greater import than the former. His courtesy is a mark of his great worth as a knight, and his ability to avoid either being rude to or sleeping with the naked chick that keeps climbing into bed with him is quite impressive.

10). Another from the unknown genius behind Gawain, this time describing the five-pointed star on the shield of Gawain. It is described both as a Celtic knot and as a memorial of the golden age of Israel under Solomon, both a Christ figure and the wisest king ever to have lived. This link between ancient Judaism and “modern” Christianity is quite interesting: the Christian theologians from Paul through the present maintain that Christianity is the fulfillment of the Old Testament’s faithful Judaism, while the Jews maintain (from AD 70 and particularly AD 94) that the Christian goyim (גימ) are wholly separate from them and especially accursed due to their inactivity during the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Herodian temple (often considered to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world).
The five points represent a number of things, including two lists straight out of the Roman Catholic Church. This further demonstrates the thorough Christianity/Catholicism of the Medieval British world.

2). This selection and selection 15 are both from Malory’s MorteDarthur, which was a compilation of various stories of (usually) unknown authorship. This is one of our only sections in prose, due to the earlier works having to have been memorized. This also contributes greatly to the more minute focus in particular of the metaphysical poets over and against the great epic scope of the previous poets: when precision is possible, spending two hours debating which word to use is justifiable, but when the next Philistine to get his grubby hands on your work is just going to forget or change it, the exact sound isn’t quite so essential.
This is rather a tragic statement of Arthur’s. He is fully correct in realizing that, while his Guinevere was “expendable” to his court and way of life, Lancelot (and the many knights that went with him) was not. He is not saying that his wife is useless in comparison or anything like that; he is recognizing the death of a golden era, and the future proves him horrifically correct.

6). When dealing with this translation of Geoffrey Chaucer, I think it best to start by interpreting. So here’s a new translation (rough and neither versified or metered):

Nevertheless, while I have time and space,
Before I go any further with my story,
I think it would be good to talk,
And tell you all the circumstances
Of each of the people (or at least how they appeared):
Which ones, what rank
And what kind of order,
And with a knight will I begin.

I’m also not entirely sure how to explain the significance of this to the rest of the text. Chaucer is simply explaining what he’s going to do before he does it. So, it does inform us that there’s an omniscient narrator, but that’s no surprise. Further yet, I’m not entirely certain why Chaucer started with the knight, though, as all of this is speculation anyway, I would guess that it’s due to his massive genius when it came to human psychology. He was writing when the knight was already a type that was becoming obsolete: the cities and the merchant classes that arose in them were undermining the feudal order. The increased population increased the possibility of travel and trade, and for the first time, people had a real chance to actually improve their own lot in life, to grab their bootstraps and pull hard. So as the knights were fading, the idealism about them was arising, and thus Chaucer begins with them, as Cooper began with the frontier and good old Louis began with the Wild West: the reality had just passed, and therefore it must have been better than what we have now.

13). Everyman, the earliest extant copy of which dates to 1530, has delightful lines and is about as subtle and covert as a Mormon missionary (it’s the nametags and backpacks that give them away). It’s about you (hence the title). It’s about the future. It’s like a (far superior) precursor to Heaven’s Gates, Hell’s Flames, and the fact that it’s actually effective is enough to drive even a Christian hedonist such as myself to nihilism.
In it, each thing in life is stripped of all possible worth and revealed to be hollow and worthless in the light of eternity. Which is a valuable lesson, yes, and is something that our filthy rich American drama queen generation could stand to learn a bit more thoroughly than we have as of yet, yes. I know. But life is good, meat is tasty, and mud between the toes is a perfect refutation of any Gnostic asceticism that I’ve yet found.
Anyway, this is worldly goods announcing that they tend to destroy men’s souls; that men belong to them and not the other way around. Men are transitory, but the wealth goes on unchanged; wealth is the redwood tree in the forest, and the men that “possess” it are nothing more than a slight flavor on the air. If goods save one man, they destroy a thousand, and we can’t take them with us.

7). This, the first line of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, is presented by our Norton Anthology as a pro-feminist line, immediately after it presents Chaucer, the author of the line, as a product of his misogynistic culture. Which I, at least, find entertaining. But I don’t typically look too deeply for meanings in things like this: when Mark Twain says he doesn’t want any of that nonsense about the Mississippi representing life, I tend to take it at face value, regardless of what modern interpreters have done to “correct” his meaning. Today’s critics and translators seem to be afflicted with some type of chronological snobbery and spend half their time “improving” works that they can’t even understand. And I won’t even start on filmmakers.
I think this is quite as simple as it sounds: even if there were no authority in this world, this woman’s experience gives her the right to speak of marriage. The passage that follows is highly ironic, quite cynical, and contains a wry wisdom that Chaucer gives to this foolish woman, allowing her to both confirm and satirize her judges. Personally, I think he kinda liked her. In any case, he was probably closer to Donne in his fondness for the ladies than we tend to think of him, and Donne seems to have inherited some of his wry cynicism that is delivered with either entirely too much asperity or (at times) overt joviality to be easily mistaken for a mordant bitterness.

Left-Handed Sons of the Right Hand

2011-09-11T02:40:00.000-07:00

Benjamin (בִּנְיָמִון) was originally named Ben-Oni (בֶּן־אוֹנִי). Rachel died giving birth, and named him "Son of My Sorrow," but his father preferred "Son of the Right Hand." This signifies a position of favour and authority, which we find to be the case when his father refuses to let him go to Egypt with his brothers, and we all know the story. What is interesting to me is that the only times I can think of in all of Scripture that a man is mentioned as being right or left handed (Ehud in Judges 3:15 and the slingers of Judges 20 and 1 Chronicles 12:2), he is a left handed "son of the right hand."

In the book of Judges, Israel's rise to power in the Middle East is being traced. They begin faithfully and obediently, and serve God all the time of Joshua's life (110 years, one ten less than Moses' 120, which is the perfect government of ten twelves). They rebel, and are delivered into the hand of "Chushan-rishathayim," literally "Kuwshan of double-wickedness" for eight years, and from whom they are saved by Othni-el the "force of God," son of "the hunter," nephew of Caleb. Now we hit verse twelve of chapter three, and it gets interesting. God strengthens the Calf (Eglon), king of "her father" (Mo-ab) against Israel, who collects Lot and Esau and takes the "erect" city, the city of the palm trees; then the Israelites return to Egypt in all but geography, becoming slaves to their gods. But upon their repentance, God raises up Unity (Ehud), the left handed son of the right hand to kill Eglon and deliver Israel after three sets of six years: three weeks of years with no Sabbaths (Jordan stretched you a little, but I shall stretch you much...).

So, here is my theory.

The right hand is a place of honour. But Israel throughout the book of Judges is dishonourable: they rebel time after time, and the book is a chiasm with the theme of left-handedness being one of the first bookends (chapter three, immediately after the introduction, and chapter 20, immediately before the conclusion; in each case, Judah goes up first, in each case Israel is unified: Ehud means unity, and many more similarities). Now this is in itself significant, but it's made far more so by the fact that Hebrew has no word for left-handed. The Hebrew actually reads that Ehud was a man whose "right hand was bound" (הַיְמִינִ֔י אִ֥ישׁ אִטֵּ֖ר יַד־ יְמִינֹ֑ו) and the seven hundred slingers were "men of bound right hands." So in Judges, Israel's honour is bound: they are rebellious and dishonourable. But then they unify against this dishonour and destroy it in submission to God.

But right after this (chronologically), they again rebel: they have been dishonoured among the surrounding nations because of rebellion, and only freed by God's mercy through judges. But now they want to be just like the surrounding nations, not a lesser nation to be conquered and re-conquered. So they are given a king of the left hand, whose dishonour shapes the noblest king of Israel, whose dynasty takes Israel from her dishonour into her greatest glory.

All Right, I'll Tell You

2011-08-28T22:38:00.001-07:00

The Dragon's Tooth by N.D. Wilson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

All I've got to say is that I've got quite decent taste.

I was actually kind of nervous going into this one. I'd really liked Leepike, loved 100 Cupboards more with every book and every reading, and was afraid that this one would be a letdown. After all, I love Hylfing. Mordecai and Caleb are awe-inspiring, and Henry and Zeke are the kind of laid back friends that are extremely hard to find in books. And I, unfortunately, have a great fear that Richard had some of his roots in me. But hey, second base isn't all bad.

So, I started this one slowly. And then I finished it fast. It feels weightier, more ponderous, and more ambitious than the Cupboards series with its references to everything from Gilgamesh through Earhart, and the way that it links them is probably going to inspire exultant cries of "I knew it!" from thirty-five year old conspiracy theorists that will be loud enough to wake their sleeping mothers, and will make several Harrell's excessively happy. The number of characters surprised me, but it is a five book series, and I expect to meet them all again in the entirely too distant future. An easy five-star book, and with the number of worlds that this one opened to me, I've got to say that N. D. Wilson's Chestertonian imagination has left the bay and is probably happily frolicking somewhere in the North Atlantic, miles from the nearest land. And that makes the Jesse happy.

"One of them was a people. He smelled like a people, looked like a people, and moved like a people." When does book two come out?

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That There Stairway Gets Y'all to Heaven

2011-08-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csBjdP8spXs&feature=related

Just a delightful foray into bluegrass. I especially love the comment "If you play this backwards, the Devil challenges you to a fiddle contest."

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

And I'm Halfway Done...

2011-08-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

Aug 23, 2011 (2 days ago)
With Seussian Pom Poms on their Heads
from Blog and Mablog by dougwils@christkirk.com (Douglas Wilson)
2 people liked this - you, and 1 more
The Dragon's Tooth releases today, so hotfoot it on down there. You don't want the line forming ahead of you.

There are two things I want to write about here. The first is the world that this new Ashtown series is set in, and the second is the world that we are in.

Cyrus and Antigone Smith live in a rundown roadside motel just west of Lake Michigan with their older brother Daniel. Their mother is nearby in a coma, and they visit her regularly. Their father has been dead for a few years. Now if you define spoilers as bits of information that you would not find out until chapter two or three, this might be a good time to stop reading. But if not, then carry on. It turns out their parents had a tenuous relationship with a really odd secret society, the Order of Brendan.

But this ancient order appears to be dedicated more to exploration and the collection of oddments than anything else. Think of a National Geographic society with paranormal powers, and a list of organization officers going back to the exploro-monk, Brendan. At the same time, their presence has contributed greatly to the twists and turns of our civilization, in ways you will discover soon enough. It turns out that a lot of disconnected and episodic battles in our history were actually parts of one, long running battle. But you can read about all that later. This book is releasing today, and Nate is virtually done with the manuscript of the second book, a manuscript which has the older cousins all agog, not to mention their parents and grandparents.

In the Cupboards trilogy, Nate successfully created scores of worlds, all connected by the motherboard of a wall full of cupboards. The protagonists were in and out of these worlds, not to mention being in and out of our own. In the new world of this new Ashtown series, the fantastic world is in effect an overlay of our own, with constant and ongoing interaction.

And this brings me to the second point, what I would describe as the central theme of all Nate's writing. His is an essentially Chestertonian vision. In a recent interview, he says that his point is to show that the world is "exactly as it seems." Lest we then nod and go back to sleep, the point is that we live in an actual world that is beyond bizzaro. To follow BBC cameramen in search of insects is to descend into the world of Dr. Seuss. If you don't think there really are creatures with Seussian pom-poms on their heads, then you obviously need to get out more. If you have the right kind of eyes, you can see it all, right here on Mulberry Street.

Chesterton put it this way. Our Father is younger than we; we have sinned and grown old. We constantly need to be brought up short. We need to be recalibrated. We need to look at the world with refreshed eyes. So the point of the right kind of fantasy -- which is what these books most certainly are -- is not to tell lies about the world. The point is confront the ever present Doldrum Lie.

The Cupboards series was a triology. This Ashtown series is planned to cover five volumes, and the journey starts today.

"One, Two, Five!" "Three, M'Lord." "Three!"

2011-08-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

Five Cities that Ruled the World: How Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York Shaped Global History by Douglas Wilson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was just jolly fun (fun comes from the Anglo-Saxon, enjoyable probably from Latin, which I know thanks to this book). It takes Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London and New York and traces the impact that they've had (and are having) upon the world. I was actually quite surprised to find that London and New York (but especially London) were my favorite chapters. I'm typically an ancient history kind of guy, with the cynical and un-Chestertonian theory that anything not here now must have been more interesting than all the stuff that is here now (but I'm getting better). However, the glance through the Puritans, the founding of baseball, the constant fires, et al, was just delightful.

A few of the more priceless snippets:

(On the subject of the ten-year or fewer exile imposed by Athens on various citizens) "When we think of such a brutal custom, and we look at the range of prominent persons in our day who could perhaps benefit from this process, it fills us with a strange combination of civilized disapproval and pagan wistfulness."

"A leading figure in this philhellene movement was George Noel Gordon--the poet Lord Byron. When he came of age, he began leading a seriously dissipated life. This lifestyle had a number of results, but one of them was to create a deep desire to do something worthwhile."

"Abraham Lincoln's great phrase 'of the people, by the people, and for the people' is actually from Wycliffe."

"Those who believe that God predetermines everything are the most likely to think that the king or Congress doesn't predestine anything."

"This is not to say that the war (of American independence) was over purely religious issues. It is to say that religion in that day was understood in such a way as to permeate all issues much more completely."

"One of the comforting things is that in the long run, stupidity doesn't work."

And these are just his. Wilson has so prodigious a knowledge of random sayings and quotations from everyone, Ambrose Bierce to Robert E. Lee, Winston Churchill to Hannibal Barca, that you can count on getting dozens of great little sayings with which you may first impress your enemies, then bore your friends until they also are enemies that you may impress. Unless your friends are like me, in which case they'll listen with rapt attention, copying down the quotes that they might steal them at a later date.

So this book was solidly between a four and a five star read, what with the origins of baseball, the delights of long quotes of Milton, several of Churchill's juicier tidbits, and so, so, ever so much more. Reading this book solely for information would be like attending church for the central heating. It is a delight, and I highly recommend it.

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

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To Beard or Not to Beard

2011-08-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

Not the Cannibal

2011-08-09T22:49:00.000-07:00

History of Hannibal by Jacob Abbott

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well, this was actually quite disappointing. I probably went into this book with the wrong expectations, but I think I was justified in those expectations, and they were not even approached.

Hannibal Barca, son of Hamilcar Barca, was a Carthaginian general of such brilliance that he is comparable to Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus of Epirus and Scipio Africanus (who became great studying Hannibal, and finally defeated him). Virtually every family in Rome lost a family member due to Hannibal in the fifteen years he spent occupying Italy like the Black Death, and had the Carthaginians supplied him with siege weapons (as he repeatedly requested), it is entirely possible (dare I say probable?) that he would have taken Rome itself. After all, he never lost a battle to the Romans in fifteen years of fighting them, and he was outnumbered in (almost?) every one of their conflicts.

I was hoping for rundowns of his battles, his military strategy, his greatest victories and how they were achieved, armor and battle array, especially of Cannae: where Barca was outnumbered something like two to one, and yet it was the greatest defeat ever suffered by the Romans, who lost over 25% of their governing body in a matter of hours, and Cannae to this day is one of the bloodiest battles in human history. And I wanted to know exactly how the great Hannibal Barca, with all his elephants and heavy cavalry, was finally brought to bay by Scipio Africanus, and I didn't get a bit of it. Well, a bit. But it was preachy. "War is bad." Yeah, I know, but this guy was really good at it. That's what I was interested in.

To give a quick example: the fifteen years that he spent in Italy ravaging the countryside and decimating every single military force that the Romans could raise against him? It's mentioned in a phrase: it doesn't even earn a full sentence, just a phrase. We get a bit of depth in a couple of battles, but no detail of strategy: we are told that people hacked each other to pieces for hours, and then this side won. We are told that Hannibal was cunning, and we're given a couple of political strategies that he employed to great effect. Political strategies? The man successfully won battles (rather incessantly) for fifteen years, and to demonstrate his cunning, Abbott resorts to his politics? We're told that he was ruthless, and we're given no examples. Not a one. We are given multiple (often accidental) examples of his generosity, and we are assured that it must have served a political purpose; see the aforementioned (still undemonstrated) ruthlessness. Superstitions of the time are mocked, and a modern materialistic view of the world is superimposed upon the ancients, and even some of the more probable events of the time are questioned as being highly suspect.

Basically, I felt like Abbott had some deep-seated personal grudge against Hannibal, and wrote this biography as a chance to lambast him. "Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography." Well, Hannibal Barca was not recent, but this seems to apply quite aptly. So, I've got to say that this was an extremely poor biography of Hannibal if you're looking for any military strategy at all. But it was fully accurate (from a modern's point of view) on all it touched.

One conversation that was related, which was for me the high point of the book (and by the time it was related I would have put money down that it wouldn't have been) was between Hannibal and Scipio, long after their battle against each other (where Hannibal was destroyed by the great Scipio Africanus). In the conversation, military strategy naturally came up, and Scipio asked Hannibal who he considered to be the greatest military genius (clearly angling for a compliment, possibly for a well-deserved compliment). Hannibal responded that Alexander the Great was. Not pleased, but probably not surprised, Scipio asked who the second was. Hannibal responded with Pyrrhus of Epirus, due to his ability to make his soldiers and the inhabitants of conquered lands love him. Scipio then asked who was third, and Hannibal said something along the lines of, "well, that would be me." Deeply offended, Scipio sarcastically asked how Hannibal would have ranked himself if he had managed to defeat the lowly Scipio Africanus. Hannibal then responded, rather surprised, with one of my favorite answers of all time: that had he beat Scipio, he would have had no choice, but would have been by honesty compelled to place himself above even Alexander the Great of Macedon as the greatest military genius of all time.

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Ashtown Burials

2011-08-05T11:28:00.001-07:00

This is a trailer for N. D. Wilson's next book, starring the Super 8 star Joel Courtney.

Enjoy.

And I the Lord Have Not Done it?

2011-08-03T16:13:00.000-07:00

Death in the City by Francis A. Schaeffer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My favorite section in this book was a single throwaway paragraph in which he commented on Cantica Canticorum, the Song of Songs. Overall I was surprised with how readable he is: I was expecting more of an erudite, even an elitist tone, but he would have been perfectly intelligible to anyone. He speaks from a tremendous compassion, and there is in him a humility so vast that you almost don't recognize the depth of genius behind it. Almost. Yet for all of this, he has a simple, stark, prophetic view of our culture and its relation to God that is on the knife edge of desolation.

He would have been an astonishing man to know: to see so great a genius bent in such humility, in such tenderness lowered down to the most shattered of the lives God made. This was not a man who wrote from his ivory tower, but from the filthy, smoldering ruin; his arms bloody to the shoulders. "The hippies also speak of love, but they have made Haight-Ashbury a desert," and "Orthodoxy without compassion stinks to God."

As this is the first Schaeffer that I've read, I can't say with certainty, but I would guess this to be a decent introduction. It's comprised of lectures, and while it isn't Augustin's Confessions, it isn't like wading through deep mud either. I did very much like it, and am greatly looking forward to the next time I lift him off my shelf.

"How can we speak of judgment and yet not stand like the weeping prophet with tears?"

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Why Do the Heathen Nations Rage?

2011-08-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith by Peter Hitchens

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Peter Hitchens can write. His prose in this autobiographical journey from atheism to faith is at times elegant, precise, poignant, poetic, mystical and melancholy, and is almost universally exquisite. This book was like candy. Yes, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly," but it's so refreshing to encounter someone that does it well. Here are a few samples of what I mean.

"It is my belief that passions as strong as his are more likely to be countered by the unexpected force of poetry, which can ambush the human heart at any time."

"It was illustrated with soppy pictures of Christ looking--in C. S. Lewis's potent sneer at stained-glass sentimentality--"like a consumptive girl."

"Unlike Christians, atheists have a high opinion of their own virtue."

"There were other things too. During a short spell at a cathedral choir school (not as a choirboy, since I sing like a donkey) I had experienced the intense beauty of the ancient Anglican chants, spiraling up into chilly stone vaults at Evensong... The prehistoric, mysterious poetry of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, perhaps a melancholy evening hymn, and the cold, ancient laments and curses of the Psalms, as the unique slow dusk of England gathers outside and inside the echoing, haunted, impossibly old building are extraordinarily potent. If you welcome them, they have an astonishing power to reassure and comfort. If you suspect or mistrust them, they will alarm and repel you like a strong and unwanted magic, something to flee from before it takes hold."

"My own confirmation, by contrast, was a miserable modern-language affair with all the poetic force of a driving test..."

"Utopia can only ever be reached across a sea of blood."

"The delusion of revolutionary progress, and the ruthlessness it justifies, survives any amount of experience."

So yeah, I was fond of this book. But more than just his voice when writing, his organization and progression through his experience and his understanding of the surrounding events is clear and extremely insightful. It is, in a word, a delightful book: it is not often that a book on this type of topic this feels more like a reward than a duty, but this is that rare one, and I highly recommend it.

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Smart Cat Says Dumb

2011-08-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is definitely a 3.4 star book. A very quick read: I finished it in a good bit less than an hour of actual reading, and it's easily worth ten times that. It is tremendously subversive, and in a very wholesome way.

The author, John Taylor Gatto, is a fairly big deal in the NY state school system--Teacher of the Year and all that jazz--and his thesis is that our school system actually hinders learning. One of the analogies that he uses is the difference between a painter and a sculptor: a painter puts something on a canvas, and we view education this way. A sculptor takes away the obstacles, as Michaelangelo reputedly said, a sculptor "liberates" what is within the stone, and this is how we should view education. A teacher's job is not to fill the student's head with facts, but rather to facilitate their desire and ability to learn.

Which, to a great extent is true. And he goes back further than this; he goes back to the seven things that all teachers teach children and what the ramifications of these things are, and he carries it out further than this; he carries it out to what needs to happen to actually change the school system as it is. And this is why it is closer to three stars than to four in my mind: while it is extremely insightful and absolutely essential for anyone interested in education to, at the very least, encounter, it is operating within the framework of the public school system.

And he understands this system: he goes back to Horace Mann and he truly and profoundly knows what he's dealing with, but he thinks it can be saved, while I think it's invention was a catastrophic event the likes of which the American world will never see again. It is the single damning weakness of our nation: it has created a generational gap, ripping (indeed, aborting, as it were) the children from the wombs of their parents long before they were ready to be on their own, thus depriving them of all of the wisdom and truth that their parents possessed. And to fill the void that is created? What is it that replaces the discipline and culture of a family? A lowest common denominator cookie-cutter classroom run by teachers that typically look at our children as the one thing standing between them and a couple stiff martinis (you know the ones I mean, straight out of a Pink Floyd song). So we foster this mental infanticide, and the most influential thing that many a mother will ever say to her son is "I'll see you after school, honey," and all of this simply because we live within the failed experiment and view it as the natural state of affairs.

But in any case, Gatto sees the failure of the system in a way that very few people do. This book is a necessary read to understand how the government schools fail our children.

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Thanks to the Valkyrie

2011-08-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

Jane Austen by Peter J. Leithart

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was fascinating, and in some ways kind of an exposé. I'm actually quite delighted by the fact that the far-inferior Bronte's really didn't like Austen at all. Especially as I know several people that always mix up who wrote what, which is simply inconceivable to me. It's like asking who wrote King Lear: Edward de Vere as Shakespeare or Stephanie Meyer.

What I chiefly had not known was the depth of her religious conviction. If you read the books, you get glimpses of it. Very little of that survives the screenwriters (if any), and it's typically forgotten. But this is a woman whose last words were "God grant me patience. Pray for me, oh pray for me."

She was delightful, flippant, lively, witty and at times downright savage in her prose. Consider a few examples. When a woman gave birth, or 'was brought to bed' untimely due to a fright, Austen speculated "I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband." Or in a letter to her sister, she commented "Expect a most agreeable Letter for not being overburdened with subject--(having nothing at all to say)--I shall have no check to my Genius from beginning to end." In what ended up being one of my favorite sections of Leithart's book, he quotes her as having said that she (and I quote): "attended the theater to see Don Juan, 'whom we left in Hell at 1/2 past 11.' One home was full of 'modern Elegancies,' but lacked an air of seriousness: 'if it had not been for some naked Cupids over the Mantlepiece, which must be a fine study for Girls, one should never have Smelt Instruction.' "

Not exactly the Austen that most people describe: far more vivacious, far less Victorian prudishness, let alone Edwardian weirdness that has been attributed to her as of late. She was a good deal more like Eliza Bennett than we typically seem to think, delighted and amused by the folly of others, and not the first person you'd want to cross swords with in the dinner-time chatter.

So this was a great book, an especially fine read after just going through her novels. Also, I was called in to arbitrate as to which was better: Persuasion or Northanger Abbey. In an attempt to avoid being slain by a very diminutive, Chesterton loving girl, I shall gladly (and nervously) say that Persuasion is Austen's finest serious novel, but of all her books (which is to say, of all her heroines), the one I'll return to most often out of a simple, childlike affection will be the lovely Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.

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My New Diet

2011-07-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

I'm now adopting a strict diet--a very strict diet in fact. I'm limiting myself to food. Here's how.

Smirking

2011-07-29T04:45:00.000-07:00

From Wilson (the older than two generations below him and younger than one above): "And as for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution? Ah, t'would be glory. To borrow a line from somebody (I forget who), once the debate started, we would have the special treat of watching all the big spenders of Congress standing in front of microphones, cameras rolling, and all of them sweating like Mike Tyson at a spelling bee. After that, the Lord could take me home anytime. I will have lived a full life."

Bunter the Beloved

2011-07-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers by Dorothy L. Sayers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well this was a jolly little romp. A great deal of Bunter, which always makes me happy, and Wimsey got a nice Folio Dante, which makes me jealous. All in all a rather typical (and therefore pleasant) little mystery by Sayers. Great fun.

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The George Shall Smile

2011-07-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

Wicked Bugs by Amy Stewart

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I feel like the wine taster at the wedding in Cana: the best was saved for last. The best, in this case, being zombie bugs, bugs that take over an unwilling host (such as a cockroach, grasshopper, snail, etc) and use it for their own nefarious purposes, such as turning its antennae iridescent colours and waving them around to attract the nearby Nazgul, or perhaps causing grasshoppers, drunk with vino del mar, to fall violently in love with a particular passing fish. Alas, leaping to the water like Jean Valjean does not preserve them from perishing in it like Agamemmnon: they can't swim, and die in a bliss of ardent, wet-gilled fervour, doubtlessly delivering poignant love poems with their last breaths. Of particular warm and fuzzy feelings for me, who have peeled back ceilings and watched them scurry away, opened ovens to the sight of cockroaches two inches deep, and found the scientific way (trial and error) that a roach's head is entirely unnecessary to the survival of the rest of the roach (for a few days, anyway: plenty of time to reproduce) is the delightful insect that stings a roach, then inserts its stinger into the temporarily immobilized roach's brain, and then, steering via the antennae, walks the now docile behemoth back to its own home like it was leading an elephant, where it lays its larvae on the roach's abdomen. They proceed to eat the roach from the inside out, turning it into a disposable incubator, and I applaud them.

Other, more well-adjusted humans will probably loathe this book. But those of us that delight in the misery of others, or at least those who can find admiration for their creative methods of dying--seriously, how many autopsies come back with "caterpillar" filled in under "cause of death?" That's impressive--those humans like me, in other words, will greatly enjoy this book. In fact, we'll probably convince our roommates to bathe in raid and never leave the home (safe save for bedbugs, the lice that killed half of Napoleon's army, the black-widow's kiss of death, and numerous other delights).

As it is a dictionary of types, it's not the smoothest read. But who cares? It's not a novel, it's a catalogue of ants whose bites resemble gunshot wounds, of black flies that kill animals by the tens of thousands, of parasites that through itching inspire suicide, of bugs that shoot acid at the rate of a heavy machine-gun, even of a super-society of Argentine ants stretching from San Diego to Eureka, Ca. And as such it is awesome. Enough to raise up a new generation of entomologists, who can then write more books like this one, inspiring the Jesse to heights of ecstasy as yet uninspired by aught but bugs.

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Oh, Udolfo...

2011-07-21T18:58:00.000-07:00

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My one complaint about this book would have to be its length: there's not nearly enough of it. But, I'd often wondered exactly what a book written from Jane Bennet's perspective would be like, and now I think I have have a fairly decent idea.

Catherine is a sweet, naive girl who tends to believe too much in the innate goodness of all people that she loves, and too much in the necessity of the villains of her Gothic novels. But she is only seventeen, after all, though she turns eighteen somewhere in the book.

This read almost like Austen was simply idly amusing herself in the writing of it. I was two chapters from the end and wondering how she was going to tie it all together when out of the blue the omniscient narrator suddenly begins a conversation with the reader.

Most of the book was lighter and more flippant than her others, but of all her heroes, I have to say I've now put Henry Tilney right toward the top of the list, and of her heroines, I kind of like Catherine. She's a bit of a ditz, but such a sweet, dewy eyed ditz that you can't help but feel a bit protective of her, like you want to cloister her away from the big bad world so she can remain a naive seventeen year old forever.

Anyway, great fun, and more overtly fun than any of her others to date.

Also, it's just delightful to have an Austen heroine reading a Bronte novel, and thus to get a rather hilarious book review by Austen herself...

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Wildebeest and Eagle

2011-07-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

When this baby wildebeest becomes a grandfather, he's going to be the most annoying grandfather in the world, always going on about the time that he got attacked by lions and crocodiles at the same time. But I think he's earned it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

And then of course, my favorite bird on earth, just because of what it can do: the Golden Eagle.

First, it can kill a goat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XafAdkZIYKA

But the way it brings down a deer is simply unreal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAsXtDKdU0Q&feature=related

Enjoy.

Pretty Much Sums it Up.

2011-07-15T16:01:00.001-07:00

http://www.tobyjsumpter.com/a-cautionary-tale/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HavingTwoLegs+%28Having+Two+Legs%29

Rachel Jankovic via Piper

2011-07-15T15:34:00.000-07:00

Rachel Jankovic is Doug Wilson's youngest daughter, and she wrote a magnificent piece on motherhood that is posted on Piper's website.

Enjoy.

Motherhood Is a Calling (And Where Your Children Rank)
July 14, 2011 | by: Rachel Jankovic | Category: Commentary
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A few years ago, when I just had four children and when the oldest was still three, I loaded them all up to go on a walk. After the final sippy cup had found a place and we were ready to go, my two-year-old turned to me and said, “Wow! You have your hands full!”

She could have just as well said, “Don’t you know what causes that?” or “Are they all yours?!”

Everywhere you go, people want to talk about your children. Why you shouldn’t have had them, how you could have prevented them, and why they would never do what you have done. They want to make sure you know that you won’t be smiling anymore when they are teenagers. All this at the grocery store, in line, while your children listen.

A Rock-Bottom Job?

The truth is that years ago, before this generation of mothers was even born, our society decided where children rank in the list of important things. When abortion was legalized, we wrote it into law.

Children rank way below college. Below world travel for sure. Below the ability to go out at night at your leisure. Below honing your body at the gym. Below any job you may have or hope to get. In fact, children rate below your desire to sit around and pick your toes, if that is what you want to do. Below everything. Children are the last thing you should ever spend your time doing.

If you grew up in this culture, it is very hard to get a biblical perspective on motherhood, to think like a free Christian woman about your life, your children. How much have we listened to partial truths and half lies? Do we believe that we want children because there is some biological urge, or the phantom “baby itch”? Are we really in this because of cute little clothes and photo opportunities? Is motherhood a rock-bottom job for those who can’t do more, or those who are satisfied with drudgery? If so, what were we thinking?

It's Not a Hobby

Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling. You do not collect children because you find them cuter than stamps. It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in. It is what God gave you time for.

Christian mothers carry their children in hostile territory. When you are in public with them, you are standing with, and defending, the objects of cultural dislike. You are publicly testifying that you value what God values, and that you refuse to value what the world values. You stand with the defenseless and in front of the needy. You represent everything that our culture hates, because you represent laying down your life for another—and laying down your life for another represents the gospel.

Our culture is simply afraid of death. Laying down your own life, in any way, is terrifying. Strangely, it is that fear that drives the abortion industry: fear that your dreams will die, that your future will die, that your freedom will die—and trying to escape that death by running into the arms of death.

Run to the Cross

But a Christian should have a different paradigm. We should run to to the cross. To death. So lay down your hopes. Lay down your future. Lay down your petty annoyances. Lay down your desire to be recognized. Lay down your fussiness at your children. Lay down your perfectly clean house. Lay down your grievances about the life you are living. Lay down the imaginary life you could have had by yourself. Let it go.

Death to yourself is not the end of the story. We, of all people, ought to know what follows death. The Christian life is resurrection life, life that cannot be contained by death, the kind of life that is only possible when you have been to the cross and back.

The Bible is clear about the value of children. Jesus loved them, and we are commanded to love them, to bring them up in the nurture of the Lord. We are to imitate God and take pleasure in our children.

The Question Is How

The question here is not whether you are representing the gospel, it is how you are representing it. Have you given your life to your children resentfully? Do you tally every thing you do for them like a loan shark tallies debts? Or do you give them life the way God gave it to us—freely?

It isn’t enough to pretend. You might fool a few people. That person in line at the store might believe you when you plaster on a fake smile, but your children won’t. They know exactly where they stand with you. They know the things that you rate above them. They know everything you resent and hold against them. They know that you faked a cheerful answer to that lady, only to whisper threats or bark at them in the car.

Children know the difference between a mother who is saving face to a stranger and a mother who defends their life and their worth with her smile, her love, and her absolute loyalty.

Hands Full of Good Things

When my little girl told me, “Your hands are full!” I was so thankful that she already knew what my answer would be. It was the same one that I always gave: “Yes they are—full of good things!”

Live the gospel in the things that no one sees. Sacrifice for your children in places that only they will know about. Put their value ahead of yours. Grow them up in the clean air of gospel living. Your testimony to the gospel in the little details of your life is more valuable to them than you can imagine. If you tell them the gospel, but live to yourself, they will never believe it. Give your life for theirs every day, joyfully. Lay down pettiness. Lay down fussiness. Lay down resentment about the dishes, about the laundry, about how no one knows how hard you work.

Stop clinging to yourself and cling to the cross. There is more joy and more life and more laughter on the other side of death than you can possibly carry alone.

Rachel Jankovic is a wife, homemaker, and mother. She is the author of "Loving the Little Years" and blogs at Femina. Her husband is Luke, and they have five children: Evangeline (5), Daphne (4), Chloe (2), Titus (2), and Blaire (5 months).

Bell and Sampson

2011-07-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a movie made by Rob Bell (thank you Anonymous), and here is a spoof done by Canon Press (starring Stephen Sampson). Then, Wilson responds to all the questions you're about to ask here.

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

Judge the Judges

2011-07-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

so that by the Judges we shall be judged.

My house (Boniface Hill) will be starting a Bible study on the book of Judges soon, and not just by Aslan's definition. As a result of this, I'll have regular posting fodder, which I'll probably write, revise, re-revise, read, question God's wisdom in perpetuating my existence, and use the posting fodder to "put Watts in 'em, boys" or some such not-necessarily-productive-but-definitely-entertaining thing (large bangs and primary colors appeal to the young). But, one post in a hundred will probably make it past the gauntlet of semi-sentience that is my mind, and this is the first of those, in my typical sophisticated and highly technical writing style of "somewhat like a list or something."

1. Judah is the royal tribe of Israel (read the blessing in Genesis something or other), so it's not surprising that they're sent in first. What is surprising is that they ask Simeon, one of the two tribes cursed for using the sign of the covenant (circumcision) as a weapon against members of the covenant (the freshly circumcised). The result of this curse was that they didn't have a parcel of land for their own; theirs was taken out of Judah's.

2. Adoni-Bezek: literally, 'Lord of the Lighning flash' or 'Lord of the Sunrise.' In either case, this Adoni is not too hard to see as a representation of Satan, the ruler of the world: he is a Jovian figure (lightning or sunrise) who dominated the seventy nations. (In Genesis nine or ten, the seventy nations of the world are listed; when seventy nations are mentioned here it's an obvious reference to the world. Therefore, Adoni-Bezek is the "ruler of the world.") It's significant that he's the first to fall. The rest of the book is the mop-up job that we botch (much as today, the war is over, but we keep losing battles), but our sin is used to demonstrate the fact that it can't stop the Grace of God, and we'll end up winning in spite of our best efforts. So quit whining, barbeque the tri-tip, raise your glass to God and sing something, blessit (inverted profanity).

3. Big toes and thumbs: not a clue, except for the obvious military ramifications (ever thrown a spear without a thumb? I thought not). Somehow it's more significant than just this, but I don't really know how; it's like the places of the body that the blood is rubbed on. So if you know, tell me, and if it's convincing, I'll add you as an admin to my blog and try to get in on your book royalties.

4. Ten-thousand: obviously a round number, but surprising in that it's four tens instead of just three.

5. Kirjath-Arba: Kiriath means city, and Arba means four, so this is plausibly four cities that merged. However, far more interesting is that Arba was the name of the father of Anak, and therefore of the Anakim (the giants with a fondness for digital sextets that terrified the Israelites so that their bodies were scattered in the desert), so this is also plausibly a city founded by him. In any case, it's occupied by giants, and Judah kills them all; one of the reasons there are so few left today.

6. Note the five kings of the Philistines, and endure typology: the fifth day of creation is when the fishies and the cheep-cheeps were made, and the fish typically represent the gentiles (hence, we're fishers of men, and in the OT fish are almost never mentioned and are absolutely never eaten, and then Jesus comes and suddenly we didn't know that other animals were made out of food). So, the five rulers of the Philistines represent the Gentile world as a whole, and anytime you see five kings, you're fully justified in thinking "uh-oh." This becomes big with Sampson, and is huge in Revelation and anything else that John wrote.

7. And finally, they start out so gloriously... Here's the pattern:

1. Creation
2. Fall
3. Decline
4. Judgment
5. Re-creation

The chief three?

1. Adam to Noah,
2. Noah to David and Ezra,
3. Daniel and Ezra to Christ and the Church.

That's all for now.

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

The Emperor Exhumed

2011-05-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

Defending Constantine by Peter J. Leithart

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. This is the first time I've decided to intentionally wait over two months before reviewing a book.

To get all the boring yet essential stuff out of the way: Leithart is brilliant. This is not really news to any of my classmates; it's like saying "Obama is president." Yeah. We know that. But to those of you who haven't had the privilege of taking Theology from the guy who was being published in theological journals before I was born and would still manage to smoke me in basketball, allow me to inform you: Leithart is brilliant. Secondly, he's not lazy, and not only has he written about as many books as I've read, but he reads a few thousand per week and never forgets a word of them. This is the only explanation. I think he's a vampire. Or at least the Count of Monte Cristo.

I distinctly remember one all-night study group that I had in which we, foolish delinquents that we were, walked past Leithart's office to go get coffee at midnight. He was sitting there instructing his computer on the finer points of supra vs. infralapsarianism and its effects upon the reconciliation of the soteriological and ecclesiological disparities in Augustin's De Trinitate and City of God (or playing minesweeper; it's really hard to say), and, when our study group finally realized that we had no hope of remembering which route was taken by Darius and which by Xerxes and had settled for the somewhat less productive task of drawing a fleet of planes bombing the very accurately detailed (hail Everardus) British Isles, we decided to go for a walk to clear our heads. This was about two am, and Leithart was still in his office, either in the running for the theological equivalent of the nobel prize or setting a new record time for the "experienced" category. When we walked by his office again at four, he was still there, without appearing to have moved, but wearing a different shirt and tie: he had gone home, slept, showered and come back in to school between two and four am. He then led morning prayer at six-thirty, which was when I decided to give up on life and start taking my computer games more seriously.

Anyway, this book is by Leithart, which is a very good thing. However, even his tremendous ethos (think reputation) may not manage to drive so much as the title through the emotional antagonism that the vast majority of the church has toward Constantine. I had no such hesitation, as, on the one hand, I don't believe that Shakespeare is Shakespeare, or that AIDS is caused by an STD, or that our last president was stupid, or (no stoning me allowed) that our current one is evil, and on the other hand, I could easily believe that Leithart and Constantine were good friends back in the day, when Leithart was young and foolish, so I was eager to believe the best of Constantine. Plus he has an awesome name. However, I and my kiddie-pool enthusiasm weren't quite prepared for the tsunami of Leithart's nearly exhaustive knowledge of the subject. In some ways, this book reminded me of his Brazos commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, in which half of the book is spent interacting with other authors of differing opinions. There is no shortage of authors antagonistic toward Constantine, charging him with everything from brilliant and cynical statesmanship to being a rather dense tool of the devil to having extremely poor penmanship, and Leithart has to spend almost the entire book exhuming him so as to exonerate him before he got to the dessert: the last chapter: the baptism of the world.

I'll not even attempt to summarize in a book review what took a man such as Leithart an entire book to lay a foundation for, and forty pages to expound. Allow me to simply say this: I'm not actually as twitterpated about Leithart as I make myself out to be. I believe him to be tremendously brilliant, but there are actually several points upon which, I flatter myself, I disagree with him. Probably I don't even understand the issues that I disagree about, and lack the intelligence to comprehend, let alone defend my position, but so be it; I can only do what I can with what I was given, though I'm usually too busy eating kettle chips and reading Dilbert to do even that, so I operate on a different plane than men such as Leithart. However, this book was a sledgehammer. Had I loathed Leithart's very existence (which is impossible to do once you've met Smith, or at least heard him play piano), I still would have been thoroughly shaken. Had I ignored every argument that he made to lay the foundation for his final argument, I still would have been stunned by the breadth and the implications of it.

All of this to say that Leithart's Defending Constantine had a greater impact upon me than any other book I've read this year, and opened an entirely new way for me to view the world. It is a tremendous book, and very well worth the read.

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Getting Full

2011-05-25T16:19:00.001-07:00

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Angry Jesse. Cannot anyone write a decent ending anymore? Of course she married (I'm rebelliously inferring marriage) the twit while the other guy runs off somewhere. Of course district 13 exists, but is a Brave New World in the style of Pink Floyd mixed with Huxley (did you ever wonder why we had to run for cover when the promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath the clear blue sky?). But Prim? That was downright evil. The entire purpose of the first book has been negated. Everything goes from grey to black to black with a glimmer of grey, and I'm getting tired of waiting for sunrises.

Yet, these were well written and very enjoyable, and a movie version would of necessity be happier. So, still four stars, still not kids books in any way save the writing style, and I still think they were worth reading.

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Still Hungry

2011-05-25T16:01:00.001-07:00

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well. Of course she won the games, and managed to set a first ever record of having two winners, so the evil president hates her and wants her dead and all of that, causing her to fake a relationship that will turn into a real relationship (with the wrong guy), and a rebellion will start and I now know how the rest of the series will go but still am somehow in suspense.

More cautions keep coming the longer I keep reading: there is a sexual overtone to the books that is disquieting. The girl is seventeen and keeps being interested in first the one guy, then the other, but never is anything remotely akin to marriage even referenced, which is aggravating. Also, the violence is downright disturbing. So, again, not kids books.

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Kicking the Pansy Vampires Diamond Tushes

2011-05-20T06:02:00.000-07:00

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, first things first: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is infinitely superior to anything in the Twilight series: I blazed through Meyers due to the quality of the writing (if I spent more than fifteen or twenty seconds per page I began to feel an overwhelming urge to find the nearest Mormon and incontrovertibly demonstrate to him the falsity of his personal views on eschatology in a way that would have made the baby Jesus cry). I'm going through Collins at the same pace for the same reason, but on the other end of the spectrum: the woman can write. She uses humour. And the humour is funny. There is suspense, and it's downright suspenseful. It's a book written for children, by a modern author, and I would honestly choose reading this book over asking a father who loathes the very essence of my being for permission to court his only daughter. In fact, though intended for an older audience, these were on par with the best of the Harry Potter books.

That said, these are "children's books" in the same way that Saw V: 3D is a romantic comedy.

The basic premise is--and here I should give some sort of spoiler alert, but I have no intention of doing so as I probably detest you for having the gall to breathe and can't be bothered to waste words that could be spent belittling your meager existence--but the basic premise is as follows: in a dystopian future, the North American Continent has been divvied up into thirteen "Districts" ruled by a "Capitol." Due to a failed rebellion some three quarters of a century before, the Capitol exacts a tribute in children from each of the twelve surviving Districts (District Thirteen is believed to have been nuked off the face of the planet, but I don't think I believe her), one boy and one girl from each district for a total of twenty-four children, who have to compete in an extended, televised, gladitorial death-match. The battle can go on for weeks, and the one child to survive wins. Our story takes place in District Twelve, where the sixteen-year old Katniss Everdeen volunteers for the "Hunger Games" in place of her twelve-year old sister, Prim, who had been selected. Other characters of interest are her alcoholic mentor, her mother, the boy going to fight with her, and her friend and hunting partner that she should end up marrying but probably won't.

The book, as I said, is very well written. It is a thriller, and I kept forgetting to breathe throughout the book (even though I knew she'd survive, or the next two in the trilogy would be very boring). I was surprised at the method of her survival, and the ending of the first book might as well have been ended the way Thucydides ends for all the closure it gives us. An easy four stars, an easy R rating whenever it's converted into film.

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Alice Must Be Bored

2011-05-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

An honest caution: I may be prejudiced due to the fact that Carroll was a suspected pedophile who had, at best, one seriously creepy relationship with the ten-year-old Alice. That said, here's my review.

Well, I finally did it. Mostly. Kinda. Not really, but enough to satisfy myself, and then another hour, at which point I decided that an acid trip from the point of view of a six year old really wasn't all that interesting. I was reminded of Chicken Run: "Me life flashed before me eyes... It was really boring." So, I went from Lewis Carroll to G. K. C. Ballad of the White Horse, to be precise, and I have to say that that there was a bit of a contrast.

Now here's a spoiler alert: I'm about to give away the entire plot of the book (or at least the first half). Alice is normal, then really short, then really tall, then really short, then gets a really long neck, then gets short, then gets normal, then gets huge, then gets normal, then gets tiny, and keeps talking to random animals and animated inanimate objects throughout, the most interesting characters being the Cheshire Cat and the decapitatomatic queen, and a couple bits of poetry are randomly scattered throughout. But even with the poetry: "Speak roughly to your little child, and beat him when he sneezes..." is kinda weak when placed right before "But while he moved like a massacre, he murmured as in sleep," and not just due to content: due to sheer aesthetic appeal.

Now, it is a kid's book, and maybe I would have enjoyed it when I was about six, but I think my attention span was even shorter then (if possible) than it is now, so I'm gonna go with a negative. It's the kind of book that's excellent for bedtime reading when you have several kids who fall to sleep at different times, cause you just keep reading till the last one's asleep, and the next night, when the others ask what they missed, you can honestly say "absolutely nothing" and just pick up where you left off with no one the wiser. Perhaps I'm being overly negative. I don't know: lot's of people seem to like it, but then, lots of people like the movie renditions of Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings; you know, the ones with High King Peter the Twit? Faramir the Insecure? Reepicheep the Gerbil on Crack? Orcs with the combat skills of unusually dense alfalfa?

But I digress. The point is, I don't know how this ended up being a classic. It's Modern, as in Original (all rise), but just because no one else was stupid enough to do something doesn't necessarily make you smart for being the first one. Yes, Picasso could draw like Rembrandt, but most of the time he didn't. Most of the time he drew like he had a bad case of Tourette's, and you can tell me it's brilliant all you want, I'll take a Durer or Vermeer or even Bosch (which is definitely original, but in a really different kind of way) anytime. Unless the Picasso or Kandinsky is worth more, in which case I'd sell it and buy kettle chips, pipe tobacco and beer, just to dispel the gnawing suspicion that I have artistic taste that goes beyond "pretty" verse "projectile vomit into an electric fan." I don't see what's so great about the new and novel, especially when it really sucks.

So, if Lewis Carroll is your idea of pleasure reading, have fun. I know tastes do differ, and as he is so vastly popular, mine appear very much in the minority. Maybe he took the British "nothing is allowed to happen for the first fifty pages" and decided that two hundred was more like it, and I quit just before it got good. Maybe. I'd honestly be willing to reconsider my opinion, and I'm going to give his Through the Looking-Glass a shot before I fully write him off. But it's going to be a from the hip shot that will be in grave danger of hitting my foot while I reach for a soothing draught of Chesterton.

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From Wilson

2011-04-27T05:51:00.001-07:00

A man walked into a bar with a dog, and told the men at the bar that he was willing to bet them a round of drinks that his dog was actually a talking dog.

"You're on," one of the men said.

The man turned to his dog and said, "What is on the top of a house?"

"Roof!" the dog said.

"What is sandpaper like?" That was the second question.

"Ruff!"

"And who was the greatest ball player who ever lived?"

"Ruth!"

And with that, the assembled men looked at each other, one of them grabbed this gentleman where the pants hang loose, and two others took him by each arm, and they frogmarched him to the door. Another one got the dog, and the man and his dog soon found themselves lying at the base of a parking meter. The man looked at the dog with disgust, and the dog looked back at him.

"DiMaggio?" he said.

Eugenics

2011-04-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Eugenics and Other Evils : An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I write down commonplaces as I read books: little items worthy, as N. D. Wilson said, of imitation and remembrance. I have several of these empty, unlined notebooks filled, and have broken tradition with Chesterton in not actually keeping track. With Tolkien, I devoted an entire commonplace book. With Chesterton, I'm not even going to bother trying. His complete works are contained in 37 (or more) large volumes put out by Ignatius Press, and I will just have to allow that to be my Chesterton commonplace book, though I will continue adding in some of his best.

This book, Eugenics and Other Evils, is about what it says it's about, which is odd enough, as Chesterton stays remarkably and uncharacteristically on topic. I think having a target to dismantle has something to do with it, but not really a whole lot, as he proves the impossibility of Eugenics in a single sentence somewhere towards the middle of the book. The other possibility is that his topic is a large enough cage for his mind to momentarily content itself within its confines, which seems more realistic.

Chesterton is always sheer delight to read, always fun, always unbelievably brilliant and flippant and enormous, but I had rarely encountered him with an axe in his hand, and he proves Lewis right: for the child with an axe, the joy is in chopping. This book could has a great deal of writing against government interference in the private sphere, and is written defending the old ways, the noble and chivalrous ways over and against the new ways, the stainless steel and minds too close to Saruman's in their obsession with wheels and machines. The eugenist desires to improve the overall quality of life in the same way that Nietschze did, simply a bit earlier. Instead of letting the diseased and weak die, the eugenist just ensures that they aren't ever born by preventing those genetically prone to weakness and disease from breeding, which was a staggeringly popular idea.

Indeed, it was the single driving influence in the life of the one person whose effect in our century alone has outweighed Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot and every other dictator we've seen. This person has caused more deaths than all of our enlightened genocides and all of the the Medieaval plagues. Combined. Eugenics was the inspiration of that madonna of death, Margaret Sanger. And we think eugenics is a bad joke. In reality, it was a very good joke, an evil joke, but skillful, and we are the punchline, though it turned out to be more indiscriminate than was originally intended.

Perhaps I've read too much Chesterton: I'm acquiring his habits without the skill. Or perhaps I've been up too long. A book review has turned into a tirade against Planned Parenthood. Blame it on whatever you like; I'll rectify it here: the book was magnificent, and I'm going to bed.

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Blonde Bond = Best Bond

2011-04-09T06:41:00.001-07:00

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well. I was very hesitant to read this one until I read a few reviews of it, just because of Bond's reputation with the womenfolk. However, there was very little of this, and it was (fairly) tastefully dealt with. There was also some language, and of course the violence inherent in such a story.

Suffice to say, I was astonished at how similar the new Casino Royale movie (Daniel Craig, Eva Green) stuck to the book. The primary differences are that M is a man in the book, a few significant plot points are altered, and the movie fleshes out the characters as best it can without the assistance of the omniscient narrator. And, truth be told, I preferred the movie to the book, and it was primarily due to the revision of the lead female. I thoroughly enjoyed Eva Green's more forward, prickly, quick-witted and intriguing character. I liked the verbal sparring: "How was the lamb?" "Skewered. One sympathizes;" I liked the tragic ending in the movie far more than the suicide in the book, and I liked Bond's more human reaction in the movie to the instant dehumanization that takes place in the book.

The basic plot: a Russian operative loses a great deal of money that was merely lent to him by his government, and attempts to recover it by gambling before the assassins from his government catch up to him. The British have discovered his predicament, and stake an agent of their own to play against him and prevent him from winning, thus forcing him to the absolute end of his means, hoping to either turn him or destroy him. Their plan succeeds through the skills of the British agent, who of course is James Bond. Part of Bond's cover includes the lovely woman that his government provides for him, with whom he falls in love, only to discover (after preparing to turn his back on the entire MI-5 life) that she had become a traitor to save an old boyfriend, but ended up loving Bond and sacrificing herself for his sake as a result. He reacts somewhat poorly, and hence Bond, James Bond is born.

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Guthrum Sits on a Hero's Throne, and Asks if He is Dead

2011-04-01T06:57:00.000-07:00

The Man Who Knew Too Much by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I rated this book as world-class, and allow me to qualify: it is probably only world-class to me. After all, the hero dies in the end. Oops. But he's depressed, which makes me love him. He takes a semi-pessimistic view of the world, a la Eliza Bennett's "The more I know of the world the more I am dissatisfied with it" (or whatever she says to Jane that's similar to that). And he complains that his wisdom is only of all the wrong things, so I cannot help but love him. His personality, of all of Chesterton's characters (excluding villains), is most akin to mine, or at least I think it is. Perhaps Brooke or Becky know better (and yes, I know it's misspelled, it's that way on purpose).

It's another selection of short stories that I would recommend to anyone. Not quite so flippant as Father Brown, nor so absurd as Queer Trades, but still vintage Chesterton, from a rare and dusty barrel.

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Hark Twain Once

2011-04-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well. Going from Chesterton to Twain? Not exactly the smoothest of segues, kinda like skateboarding when you see a pretty girl and (therefore) not the curb.

I forgot how judgmental Mr. Clemens tends to be. I knew I wasn't going to be all that fond of this particular book of his, what with me being all romantic-ish and whatnot, but I thought it would be enjoyable, not like a poorly presented sermon. And don't get me wrong--it had some hilarious spots, as it is Twain--just not enough to justify it in my mind. I would recommend reading it once, but not twice, and perhaps--dare I say it?--as if you want to say "current" with a clear conscience, but you already know that the quiz doesn't include this particular selection.

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The Final Chesterton (For a Moment)

2011-03-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

Tremendous Trifles by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is simply essential reading for any fan of Chesterton. It's vintage. A collection of essays on all sorts of topics: lying in bed, forgetting white chalk, being expelled from a Hansom Cab against his will, Picking his own pockets, robbing a French restauranteur, and all sorts of typical Chesterton absent-minded brilliance. His prose here tends to be more playful than in his fiction, making him the essay writer that is the exception to Lewis' rule in Horse and His Boy.

I still cannot comprehend exactly how he does what he does with words. It isn't forced or strained, as he produced a staggering amount of material, he just sees the world in a wholly different way than anyone else. He knew of his reputation for paradox, but seemed somewhat exasperated by it, as he comments that he isn't the one that made the world stand on its head.

He really is a chap that I would have loved to have met, to have simply followed around, or to have been able to record what his brain did and where his imagination took him in the course of any given hour. As it is, I'm surfacing for air and reminding myself that other authors exist (paltry and pasty beings though they be after the ferocious life and blinding colour of the Fat Catholic), and then I shall dive again when my lungs can sustain me longer. Perhaps one day I shall find--and this is an eternal dream of mine--than not only have I become a good man, but a Chestertonian one: one who knows, loves and lives the absurdities of our Triune God.

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The Kitchens of a Lord

2011-03-22T01:32:00.000-07:00

Lord Kitchener by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Yet one more time, reviewing Chesterton seems entirely pointless. Still, I shall make an attempt.

This book is, you may have foreseen, about a man named Lord Kitchener. He was a military man that was a contemporary of Chesterton's, and he seems to have practiced war in much the same way that Edward the First of England did upon Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf, or Llywelyn ap Gruffydd of Wales if you prefer (sorry Brits, I side with the consonantally enriched): that of superior force and minimal risk, entrenching every victory before moving an inch beyond the ground that was conquered, his army seemingly shoved on from behind by the impetus of his supply train. Slow yet inexorable, Chesterton compares him to a giant snail threatening the lightning Arabs that he was attacking. In his later years, he was involved in the Great War.

More than anything else, this book is fascinating in the fascination that Chesterton had with Lord Kitchener, primarily as a unique individual and secondarily as a sample of the English race as a whole. It is another example of Lewis' maxim that love bestows loveliness: in Chesterton's exuberant praise and hesitant censure, we find ourselves unable to resist developing a similar affection for the man that otherwise would have been largely or entirely unknown to us.

I have long read Chesterton with a certain awe, the type of awe I feel in Ivanhoe when Christopher Lee's paralyzing voice commands "Pray!" or when listening to Joss Ackland read The Screwtape Letters or when watching Anderson Silva deliver a flying knee, and I have come to the conviction that Chesterton never spent a great deal of time revising what he wrote. Not because it is poor, but quite the opposite: it is of such a uniform magnificence that it seems impossible to me that it is the result of "many hours of labour or nights devoid of ease:" there would be a greater variance in it. No, I think he simply wrote in his great, childish wonder, bemused by the absurdity of the world and in imitation of the Mind from which so great an offense to reason as a hippopotamus could proceed, and then, even as his creation was on to the printer he was on to the next item that happened to catch his enormous eye that viewed the world with the mind at once of a philosopher and a child. After all, "philosophers ask the most important questions, save only children." I feel that he is the type of man that one could never quite catch: even as you would grasp one point, he would have made the next three and then gone on to the next topic.

Whether or not this is true I shan't know for some time yet (at least two months, judging from the size of my bag of oatmeal), but I am quite certain that he didn't spend more than an hour or two on this little book. I tend to read fast, though not as fast as N.T. Wright can write, but I think that most Chesterton enthusiasts would find this book entirely suitable for a single pipe and no more than a finger or two of rum, as in "I don't care where the water runs if it doesn't run into the rum."

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In Defense of Lent

2011-03-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

"...Postmillenialism is one theological name to describe the basic gospel proclamation that Jesus wins and everyone might as well come along cheerfully."

Bifurcum Spirans Mammale

2011-03-19T06:15:00.000-07:00

Manalive by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Similar to Thursday, but very excellent. So queer and living a man.

#3). I have to say, I really am fully convinced that Chesterton was married to a redhead. There's no other reason for all of his heroines to have red hair. I would also like to take this opportunity to laugh at Brooke--if Chesterton married a redhead, then redheads are obviously superior to every other hair colour.

This book is vintage Chesterton: characters that you meet every day with one that no one but he could dream up. The man is a fool, a genius, a man of tremendous size and athleticism, yet of childlike simplicity. Indeed, "childlike" is perhaps the only accurate way to describe him.

I don't really want to give too much away, in case there's anyone out there mentally deranged enough to read me before he reads Chesterton, but it's an extremely worthwhile read. About half of it takes place in an unofficial trial of the main character, Innocent Smith. Just a great book, light, frivolous, full of commonplaces (In short, he undoubtedly had brains; and perhaps it was not his fault if they were the kind of brains that most men desire to analyze with a poker), and very quick. It really is a very fun book, and this is my third (?) time through it.

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But Other Than That, How Was the Play Mrs. Lincoln?

2011-03-17T07:08:00.000-07:00

At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

How the hell? I have never been so deeply, so brutally betrayed. "Almost thou persuadest me to nihilistic despair."

"All these were rosy visions of delight,
The loveliness and wisdom feigned of old,
But now we wake. The East is pale and cold;
No hope is in the dawn, and no delight."

Or how about:

"Roland is dead, Cuchulain's crest is low,
The battered war-rear wastes and turns to rust,
And Helen's eyes and Iseult's lips are dust
And dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow.

The faerie people from our woods are gone,
No Dryads have I found in all our trees,
No Triton blows his horn about our seas
And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon."

Or maybe even:

"It's vainly we are praying. We cannot, cannot check
The Power who slays and puts aside the beauty that has been.

It's truth they tell, Despoina, none hears the heart's complaining
For Nature will not pity, nor the red God lend an ear,
Yet I too have been mad in the hour of bitter paining
And lifted up my voice to God, thinking that he could hear
The curse wherewith I cursed Him because the Good was dead.
But lo! I am grown wiser, knowing that our own hearts
Have made a phantom called the Good, while a few years have sped
Over a little planet. And what should the great Lord know of it
Who tosses the dust of chaos and gives the suns their parts?
Hither and thither he moves them; for an hour we see the show of it:
Only a little hour, and the life of the race is done.
And here he builds a nebula, and there he slays a sun
And works his own fierce pleasure. All things he shall fulfill,
And O, my poor Despoina, do you think he ever hears
The wail of hearts he has broken, the sound of human ill?
He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears,
And how could it all go on, love, if he knew of laughter and tears?"

Honestly? Give me thirty-seven chapters of the magnificent, lovely, wholly beautiful deep comedy, comedy in the ancient sense, and then finish it off with the most desolate tragedy that could have taken place? How is this a children's book? Is Notes From the Underground a children's book? "Oh, as soon as you finish watching Disney's Sleeping Beauty we'll go ahead and start Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet? But this was worse: we've given Sleeping Beauty, but when the Prince kisses her, her lips are poisoned, so he dies, and she, waking and seeing him dead, kills herself. At the last moment, our magnificent dream is turned to a nightmare. Aslan returns, and He Is Tash. As Jewel (or was it Tirian? I think it was Jewel) says, it is as if you go to take a drink of water, and it is dry water. At least in The Last Battle we are given page after page of tremendous, heart-breaking glory which leaves us unable to mourn; in this we are left dumb and devastated next to the family members waiting on the platform (which Lewis doesn't even mention).

Perhaps I would not be so angry had Diamond not become so dear to me. Had I loved him less, I could far more easily abide his creator killing him. But the final injustice that so infuriated me, that of Jim and Nanny so fully rejecting Diamond as to condescendingly pity him, is never resolved, only has quick-crete poured on it, and then to fix it Diamond dies alone and unjustified, more horribly and unforgivably misunderstood by those whom he so deeply loves as he ever had been. Why could he not have been accepted? Why must there be this heart-breaking isolation? Why can there not be a final union, where Diamond is no longer the outsider but a true member, accepted as he is for who he is?

In my eyes, the only justification for this ending is if MacDonald wrote the book as a tribute to some child, quite possibly mentally damaged, that he deeply loved until their early death. If so, the tremendous tragedy is justifiable, although to put it in a children's book? I understand that he was attempting to remove the fear and horror of death with his last sentence, but he utterly failed, and he shouldn't have attempted it. Death is a horrible, unfair desolation. It cannot be made right. It cannot be made right with a lifetime, it cannot be so much as slightly mitigated with an offhand phrase.

Yet, this gives not a moment to the simple fact that this was one of the loveliest books I have ever read. The final disappointment was so tremendous only because it was set up for so great a glory. It was reminiscent (yes, only to my twisted, or should we call it unique? mind) of Pan's Labyrinth in how close it came to offering a glorious, true resolution--true the way that the dawn is true, the way a salt-wind rolls up a river and hits your face like a passing semi is true, that a niece upon each shoulder is true, that an arbor draped in clematis and rose is true--and how impotently I raged at the lie that was substituted in its place. It could have been the greatest ending I had read since Tolkien, Lewis, or Dunnett, but it ended up being the worst since Bierce.

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Club of Queer Trades

2011-03-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Club Of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How even to review this? And what exactly is the point? For that matter, what was the point of it being written? It certainly wasn't a necessary book. I don't believe the great Catholic ever sat down and said, "How to save England and the rest of the world? Ah, this will do the trick." And if I'm mistaken, if he did utter such a phrase, it wasn't about this book. Perhaps he simply needed to stretch the legs of his mind--indeed, I shall take that as the excuse (it will serve as well as any other), and now, allow me to invite you to accompany him in his hike, for the air has the smell of salt, yet there are mountains, valleys, dark close woods and expansive vistas unfolding as vast as the very designs of God.

How does one take words--I dare say he employed none that I am not on intimate terms with--and craft such glories as this book with them? I love words (and use them interminably), but they do not perform for me the way they do for him. I would give all I own to be able to see the world with the eyes of Chesterton—wait: no, this isn't true. I would not. Were I to receive his vision it would terrify me, and I would probably give all I own to be restored to my blind state. Indeed, what would a man give to restore the roof of the sky if it were at a moment rent away?

It is no wonder that we build house-boxes to enclose our souls so that the four corners of the world do not tear them apart. We build fences and post signs and do all we can to make the world a safe, a soft place, when there is nothing quite so suddenly savage or terrible as a dandelion or a daffodil, and a dragon is no more awesome (though grown somewhat less common) than a dragonfly. Yet we seek to finally and fully conquer nature through knowledge: we seek to tame the world with science.

But Chesterton did not. He wanted the world to be wild, and he rebelled at the tired, grey apathy of sin that disguises itself in the guise of respectability and wisdom. So, he carried a brace of loaded pistols, a dagger, a sword cane and a cape, and he laughed as loudly and often as a child. For the world was not a safe place, and he was not a safe man.

Indeed, Chesterton was a man, who, with N. D. Wilson, would not be afraid that he would fall off a cliff, but that he would jump.

(And the book was good too.)

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The Wise Man Builds His House of Wode

2011-03-16T02:55:00.000-07:00

A Wodehouse Miscellany by P.G. Wodehouse

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This collection I found to be hit and miss. However, Wodehouse is hard for me to judge, rather the same way that I would have difficulty distinguishing between Zoltan Kocsis and Lang Lang (may God and Mr. Appel forgive me for mentioning them in the same breath): I haven't yet fully developed the taste for Rachmaninov that I shall one day have, and therefore I don't have sufficient authority, either as a professional or as a lover, to intelligently discern betwixt the magnificent and the technically correct.

All this aside, Wodehouse is hilarious. He can't help but be hilarious. When he describes his ears as being large and "attached at right angles" and his overall appearance as tending toward the ailing piscine, I have a very justifiable reason to giggle at the image. When he describes the seventh of his nine holes of indoor golf, I lose a solid half-pound in burned calories and discover exactly what new colours appear after abstaining from air for forty seconds. (Leave it to Psmith is still my all time favorite comic work, particularly the application of socialist principles to an especially fine umbrella.) So, perhaps my taste is still developing and I shall look back on this as one of his greater works. Also, the application of wax to a floor is not particularly conducive to the appreciation of nuanced dry humour, but I still fear that this collection was not exactly his greatest.

Still, even with my lack of palate, I cannot overemphasize the playful joy of his prose: "Moths had nested in his wallet and raised large families," or, "he was a tubby chap, who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say when," or, "he looked ever more like a pterodactyl with a secret sorrow." Wodehouse is a necessary ingredient for a happy life. Just take care if you are reading him at the breakfast table that you take bites between sentences, and not in the midst of them, for his jokes be not of ruth and they enter the scenes as silently as Jeeves.

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Cause He Was In The Great Divorce

2011-03-11T20:44:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of George MacDonald, which I find sheerly delightful.

The Day Boy and the Night Girl by George MacDonald

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Now this was just plain fun. An evil witch, good king (with a bit part), "orphaned" children, beautiful girl with giant eyes and strong, naive twit of a boy. After reading the first chapter, you know the plot of every other one, but it is such a delight to simply allow yourself to get whisked away and lost in MacDonald's mellifluous voice.

Simple plot overview: a wicked(ish) witch, about whom MacDonald has some delightful opinions, manages to acquire a boy to be raised only in light, never seeing the night, and a girl to be raised only in the darkness (underground), never seeing day. Obviously, they each are everything lovely and pure, meet and fall in love, et cetera res bonus, minus a prophecy, but then it's a short book: when I was three quarters of the way through, I was convinced that it must be a part of a series. So, read and enjoy it; very good for family readings, especially for groups of kids under the age of ninety.

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The Manlius Man That Ever Was Seen

2011-03-10T01:33:00.000-08:00

The Consolation of Philosophy: Revised Edition by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How absolutely delightful: an honest use for Philosophy. Never again will I agree with Edward de Vere that there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently: here is a man who endured a dungeon and finally an unjust death. Here is yet another example of the proof that "Wisdom infinite must form the best" world; if it took the torment of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius to create his magnum opus, which of us would deny that, if he must die, as he must, this method of his death was by far the best? If it took such a fire to create so pure a gold, who could judge the suffering as needless? Who among us could have known that a penalty that must be paid could be put to such an use as this?

Lightly drifting from poetry into prose, carrying on a dialogue with Madame Philosophy, who appeared, as Dante's Virgil, to lead him through the darkened paths of his mind and reveal to him the causes of his torment, beginning with two: he had forgotten the end aim of all things, and he had forgotten what man truly is. The journey is well worth taking, and I would venture to say that it's essential. As a delightful aside: one of the earliest English translations of this book (which has been translated into every European tongue), if not the earliest, was a paraphrase by none other than Chesterton's White Horse King, King Alfred the Great.

I have read Philosophers, and have often thought little of them. I like Hume, as he manages to cut off not only everyone else's feet but his own also. I feel badly for Nietschze, who, proclaiming loudly that pity was a vice, that the weak should be allowed to perish so as to improve the overall quality of life for all men, ended his own life as a madman confined to a wheelchair, being fed soup from another's hand. I have read Philosophers as a man pores through an abandoned mine shaft for the treasure so often found, but I have rarely enjoyed the search, and often feel as Eustace or Pole emerging from the underworld, as I emerge to once again breathe the free air of Donne, Tolkien or Chesterton. This is the first time that I have found so great a quantity of wealth so beautifully arranged under a moonlit sky, and I am basking in the glory of it all. Philosophy is truly a gift from God, and one of His greatest.

This book is magnificent, and truly worth any price. Which is good, as Boethius paid a great one for it.

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Before He Killed the Turk

2011-03-10T00:13:00.000-08:00

Don Juan by George Gordon Byron

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, this feels like a guilty pleasure. Nothing too serious, nothing too deep, wry, British, inappropriate humour that's always enjoyable in a Monty Python's "Castle Anthrax" sort of way. If you know what I'm talking about, you just earned another hundred years in Purgatory. Find an Anglican (Catholic Light: a third less ritual with half the guilt) to bless you and try not to think the phrase "You're probably gay."

Anyway, it was fun, but nothing to spend much more than a couple hours on. Lots and lots of commonplaces, but I still prefer Alexander Pope.

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Early one June morning in 1872 I murdered my father--

2011-03-09T06:33:00.000-08:00

an act which made a deep impression on me at the time.
--Opening Sentence of An Imperfect Conflagration, The Parenticide Club.

The Parenticide Club by Ambrose Bierce

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ambrose Bierce once gave a review which I would here apply to his The Parenticide Club: "The covers of this book are entirely too far apart." Yet, in a way, I loved it. It is truly horrific and appalling. The title says all you need to know: it's a collection of stories in which children murder their parents; Bierce's dry, lightly whimsical, journalistic prose starkly outlined against the backdrop of a gruesome, vicious celebration of murder after murder. Never, ever read it. But, in a way, I did love it.

To understand my four star review of a book that I shelved as appalling, a book in which half of my half-hour reading was spent rereading sentences in appalled disbelief, a bit of background may be necessary. I read a good bit, and have for some time. When I was in high school, my class was assigned Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge in which Bierce describes in his always exquisite, deeply gothic prose, dry as the only sherry I'll drink, the botched hanging of a Civil War spy and his subsequent escape. Then, when he is almost safely in the home he is longing to reach, he feels a tremendous pressure on his neck and sees a blinding flash of light. The hanging hadn't failed, and he never escaped: the entire episode was in his head.

I had read stories where the protagonist dies, but I had never before encountered one in which the protagonist was nonexistent, or a real story arc in which there was no real conflict--I hadn't known it was allowed. Bierce gave us a hero, then revealed that while we were rooting for him, dodging bullets with him, feeling the exhaustion he was feeling, this entire time our hero was falling off a bridge with a noose under his left ear. Well, I loved his prose, and was fascinated with his ability to take nihilism to an entirely new level, so I got his Devil's Dictionary (he wanted to title it the Cynic's Word Book), and he now holds a special place in my heart as one of the most quotable authors on the planet (Chesterton is obviously greater than the rest, in several senses).

So, this book, this collection of short stories was what I expected. I was braced, and I bookended him with Bach to avoid the "slit carotid artery and do push-ups in the bathtub" impulse that he inevitably seems able to inspire. The most astonishing achievement is his ability to make such horrific villains, such truly amoral bastards as the main characters of these stories seem almost sympathetic.

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Even His Name Is Forgettable

2011-03-08T06:31:00.000-08:00

The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have, at this point, gone through the first nine of this collection of twelve stories, and I am now fully convinced that Chesterton was not only a man of a brilliant mind, but of a very singular mind. His paradox is well known, his way of looking at things in an entirely novel light, his self-deprecation, his humor and wit and sheer genius are all legendary, but these stories are a glimpse into the workings of his mind when he decided to amuse himself with a train of thought, and are fascinating.

They are mysteries, a la Sherlock Holmes, but the protagonist is a small, unremarkable priest with a tremendous knowledge of the depths of human nature and an almost obtuse optimism that, combined with the sacred and private nature of confession, allows him not only to solve the crime but to save the criminal. As character studies, they are astonishing. I once commented of a Cormac McCarthy novel that I had met half of his characters. The same and often more is true of these: not only have I met these characters, these lovable cynics, tunnel-visioned atheists and abstruse agnostics, but I have been and am them more often than I would care to admit.

And the crimes? The crimes committed are fantastic, impossible; crimes that defy every imagination's attempts to reconcile them with reality save that singular mind of Chesterton's which can see in reality nothing but the fantastic and impossible, and thusly marries the two with uncanny ease. This has several times caused me to utter ejaculations with a sound, as Wodehouse puts it, of Chesterton falling on a sheet of tin, due to the incurably shy simplicity that would reveal itself to none but the silent, forgotten Priest who courts truth as a lover.

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LibriVox

2011-02-25T09:09:00.000-08:00

I work nights, and it's not the kind of job that allows you to sit and read. Most of the time I'm either in uncomfortably close proximity to bodily excretions that bodies shouldn't be excreting, or explaining to doctors (with extremely complicated degrees that took more years of graduate level education than there are ants that I have personally named), doctors who are entrusted with the lives of otherwise intelligent people, why exactly the sign that says "Do Not Enter: Wet Wax" should also apply to them. So, no reading books. However, we are generally assumed to be misanthropic dysfunctional societal outcasts who take pleasure in causing pain to the daywalkers (it's only fair), so we are encouraged to listen to iPods, partly out of hope that the brain radiation will kill us off, and partly out of hope that listening to the entirety of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier without stopping will make us better people.

However, there is a delightful sight called "booksshouldbefree," which is comprised of free public domain audiobooks. These can be downloaded onto a computer and then an iPod, but I only just figured out how to download more than the first episode in each series. So, I will very soon be finishing and reviewing Club of Queer Trades, Innocence of Father Brown, Ball and the Cross, Alarms and Discursions, All Things Considered, The Defendant, Eugenics and Other Evils, Flying Inn, George Bernard Shaw, Heretics, Lord Kitchener, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Miscellaneous Essays, Miscellany of Men, Napoleon of Notting Hill, The New Jerusalem, Trees of Pride, and Tremendous Trifles, and I'd just like to comment that this list would make Kate Ligon very happy.

So, more reviews coming soon.

Facebook Post

2011-02-20T19:28:00.001-08:00

Post # 1
by Jesse Broussard on Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 7:11pm
I'm afraid that this punctuality on my part may begin to raise unreasonable expectations in the few that read these notes. It won't usually be this way, but here you are.

First off, thanks enormously to all that responded--my gratitude is real. And Lance, I'm sure there's a hammer in the garage.

The text:

John 5:24-30 (all are spoken by Christ)

Jhn 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Jhn 5:25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
Jhn 5:26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
Jhn 5:27 And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.
Jhn 5:28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
Jhn 5:29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
Jhn 5:30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

First, please keep in mind that I'm playing devil's advocate. I agree with you, David, that complete pantelism is complete heresy. I'm simply trying to defend that heresy from Scripture. Second, this time my drink is a dark brown, and out of sympathy for Lance's attention span, there shall be no third.

Initially, I found this passage quite difficult to defend from a hyper-preterist position (that all prophecy has been fulfilled), and I thought that my excursion into the delightful world of the damned had come to an abrupt end.

However, it can fit without any real strain.

The passage is a progression: 24 is past tense, 25 is present, and 28-29 are future. I think we can all agree that 24 is speaking of spiritual death. 25 appears to be speaking of spiritual death as well, simply extending the previous verse. But the chiastic mirrors of these verses, 28 and 29, seem to necessitate a future, possibly physical, resurrection of the dead, and if this verse has not been fulfilled, then pantelism is refuted.

However, could this verse not be referring to 1 Peter 3:18-19?

1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
1Pe 3:19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison...

And, as the only referent of these verses are the "ἀπειθήσασιν," the disobedient spirits, we may further appeal to Ephesians 4:8-9:

Eph 4:8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
Eph 4:9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

We know that Christ descended into Hell and made a public spectacle of those fallen angels who opposed Him (Col. 2:15), preached to those that disobeyed Him (at least in the time of Noah), and ascended into heaven with "captives in His train" (which would obviously be the righteous, leaving the unrighteous behind to their damnation).

During the time of Christ on earth, those in the graves heard His voice, and the good were raised to the resurrection of life while the damned were left behind. We may easily apply this to John 5:28-30.

Next weeks scheduled refutations are 1 Corinthians 15:23-24 and my favorite verse of all time, 1 John 3:2.

Blessings all,
Jesse Broussard

Cause Russell Has an Awesome Prophet's Beard

2011-02-19T16:06:00.000-08:00

My reader (or readers; lets be optimistic) may be aware that I come from a charismatic background. This is the type of background that generally gives the impression that if Christ hasn't returned by the time the minister makes it to the front of the church, we'll all be very surprised. Indeed, as Lance would usually practice his sermon in the car on the way to church, I feel relatively certain that there were times he could have expressed a deep and personal longing for the Blessed Event, and while he was walking up to the front and the Advent proved to be indefinitely delayed, I feel equally certain that he experienced a deepening knowledge of the Personality of God, a knowledge not necessarily inconsistent with expletives.

Well, in the similar growth in my understanding, I now believe that many of the verses I had applied to the Second Coming actually should have been applied to the first Advent of Christ, and His judgment upon Jerusalem in AD 70. Herein lies the crux: which of these verses apply to the past and which to the future return of our Lord? There is safety in a multitude of counsel, and the Christian Church has historically held to a future return of Christ, which will be accompanied by a bodily resurrection and the one great hope of every Christian, given to us by John the Revelator in 1. John 3, that when Christ is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He Is. Because of this, denying a future return of Christ is not an option. So, I got a book written by someone with my particular predicament in mind, and here we are. Or at least here I am, drinking a ridiculously overpriced drink that George Harrell informs me is not pink, but fuscia (which I would have guessed to be in the fauna division of God's creation) while mooching the internet in the only coffee shop/public house named after a reformer who claimed that his greatest aim and failure in life was to teach John Calvin to tell a joke.

It is my aim to go through C. Jonathin Seraiah's book, The End of All Things: A Defense of the Future--which I already am favorably disposed toward, what with its black cover, Hieronymus Bosch-esque painting on the front, foreword by R.C. Sproul Jr, and Seraiah's acknowledgment to the unfortunate soul that spent so much time fixing the demon-spawn computer from the abyss--it is my aim to go through this book attempting to maintain the heretical position, that there is no future advent of Christ, against all of his arguments. I expect several future posts to be devoted to this purpose.

(If the Lord should tarry.)

Answers in an Hour,

2011-02-18T19:11:00.000-08:00

if you went to public school.

Why the End is Not Near by Duane Garner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, I was greatly torn between giving a three and a four star review. For its intended audience, this book is excellent. If you have questions, this book will not be the one to answer them. If you are debating the exact meaning of a particular verse, this book will be of absolutely no use. If, however, you are looking for a brief summary of the general views of dispensational premillennialism over and against other views, this is a magnificent book.

Not only is it quite good for what it is, but the reason it got a four-star review from me is that it introduced two new arguments to me, which was delightful. It also had numerous commonplaces, which I thoroughly enjoyed. To top that off, it took me a total of fifteen minutes to read, and the new arguments were very simple and practical.

So, a very worthwhile read: quite enjoyable, informative and intelligently written.

View all my reviews

More John Chapter Two

2011-02-16T23:35:00.000-08:00

In reading my most recent post, I realized that I entirely failed to say the one thing that is the most interesting about the literary structure of the passage, and that my absolute love for the genius of John may, as a result, not have been quite so infectious as it ought to be. I'm naming all of my kids after John (especially Mordecai and Judah). He is absolutely amazing, and here is why.

The entire point of a chiasm is to focus a story around a single, central point. Everything else in the story serves to buttress and flesh out that one point. The entire point of a miracle is the event: the natural before the event and the natural after the event are bridged by this one tremendous act that violates all "laws" that the universe abides by: the blind man is not extraordinary, and neither is the seeing man. The extraordinary fact is that it's the same man. The tremendous and unnatural event is what connects the two, the hungry people with no food to the full people with twelve extra baskets; the dead girl and the teenager needing to be fed; the cripple and the man carrying his stretcher home.

In this passage, both are missing: the chiasm has no point, and there is no miracle. The miracle would occur between verses seven and eight of chapter two, but it doesn't. They pour water into the pots, and they draw wine out of it. The center of the chiasm is right between these same verses, but it isn't there. It is exactly as if there is one verse omitted from the absolute center of the story, as if some disillusioned monk decided to have a bit of fun with the next twenty thousand years of Biblical scholarship by removing the entire point of the story.

But, the omission is clean, neat, and entirely intentional. The point of the story? The point of the story is that there isn't one. And this is why I love John.

The John Cometh Into Chapter Two

2011-02-16T20:18:00.000-08:00

I'm no longer even going to defend these chiasms; I'm just going to toss them out there.

The end of verse 43: "follow me" is the center of 35-51, but also of 34-51, which ties this section to all of the ones before it, in the following general manner:

A
B
C
D
C'
B'
A'/A
B
C
D
C'
B'
A'

where verse 34 is both A' and A.

Then, in chapter 2, I'm having difficulty pinning down an exact center, which gives me tons of stuff to work with.

One and two correspond exactly to eleven and twelve, which could simply indicate an inclusio. However, verse three's "wine" and verse ten's "wine" correspond too clearly to simply be accidental, especially with all the chiasms we've had so far. Then it starts to get interesting.

I would postulate that the mother speaking to Jesus about wine is equivalent to the master of the feast speaking to the bridegroom about wine. If you grant this, it's loads of fun. Then you have servants in five and servants in nine, the water of verses six and nine, and the actual ambiguity of the miracle being the center. If you really want, you can try to make 7a correspond to 8, but 7b and 8b correspond too well to make 7b the chiastic center. Both verses are the center, making this an

a
b
c
c'
b'
a'

type of chiasm, with the actual center occurring offstage: the waterpots are filled with water, wine is drawn out. The miracle has to have occurred between these, but it's hidden from us, and it's the point of the entire thing. So ponder this: why is it hidden? Why doesn't John simply tell us what happened? What is the significance of this?

Isn't this fun?

However, this is just the structural skeleton: the muscular ramifications are where it gets really fun, and those I will largely leave to you. I am simply demonstrating the door; you get to walk through it, as there is an infinite amount of material in the room, and what would mean a great deal to you would mean nothing to me, and vice versa.

However, I will give you a few things to note: 1). Christ = bridegroom, and He Is one that never will run out of wine. 2). The water was what they washed in to become clean, and it became what filled them to make them clean (wine always equates to the Spirit) in a very simple Old/New, Type/Antitype, Shadow/Fulfillment relationship. And 3). It was good, good wine.

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

"Such a Dinner as Makes Me...

2011-02-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

more than ever anxious for the collapse of Civilization As We Know It."

Ah, Rumpole

The First Rumpole Omnibus by John Mortimer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was absolutely glorious. Just delightful.

"As I always say, murder is nothing more than common assault, with unfortunate consequences."
"He stands up with all the eager self-confidence of a rabbit with a retiring disposition caught in the headlights of an oncoming car."
"so that the unfortunate Guthrie often arrived at Chambers looking less like a suave and successful Q.C... than a man who spends his nights watching over a dynamite factory in which all the employees are allowed to smoke."
"It was rather as if a heretic, dragged before the Inquisition, had been told he'd just won a holiday in the Bahamas."

Mortimer is obviously deeply influenced by Wodehouse, and his Rumpole--short, fat, careless with money, conjoined half in war, half wedlock with She Who Must Be Obeyed (in which relationship there actually is a profound affection built out of security that we catch glimpses of), always spouting poetry, always defending and saying, "there, but for the grace of God, goes Rumpole"--his Rumpole, seems actually to be a character with deep, Christian virtues (hear me out). He is not a superficial Christian--he is not even a Christian, I don't think--as Soapy Sam Ballard is a superficial Christian, and he revolts against the hypocrisy of such a life. His life, however, is one of fierce grace: he always defends, he never pleads guilty, and he fights tooth and nail to give his (often villainous) clients a second chance at life. He has a thorough terror and loathing of ever condemning, which is rooted deeply enough to prevent his career from ever advancing, and his love of life (Pomeroy's "Chateau Fleet Street" Claret, small cigars, roaring fire and great poetry) are as deeply Puritanical (in the early, teach your dog to knock the hats off of bishops, delight in beer and making love to your wife manner of Puritans) as we could ever hope to emulate. This, combined with his wry cynicism, distaste of judges, Holmes-like intelligence and Wilde-like wit, and his deep knowledge of human nature that doesn't displace his compassion for people, make him one of my all-time favorite literary characters. The fact that he quotes poetry that I don't know doesn't hurt.

All in all, I am developing a deep and lasting affection for the brilliant, fat, British barrister, and would strongly advise anyone else to do the same.

View all my reviews

St. Francis of A Ninny?

2011-02-09T16:28:00.000-08:00

St. Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have one tremendous criticism to make of this book. If you have some perfectly good, bitter resentment towards the Franciscans (entirely legitimate), or towards St. Francis himself, or even the Jongleurs de Dieu, this book will take that exquisite resentment and turn it into an entirely unsatisfactory mushy benevolent feeling.

Another of Chesterton's brilliant works. Frederick Buechner once fondly criticized Chesterton with the comment that he'd written entirely too much for all of it to be excellent. I can sympathize, so long as I mention the fact that I've not yet found any of his "less than excellent" work. This book was delightful, short, and densely packed--the written version of a small piece of extremely rich cheesecake. One of the lines that stuck with me: "He could only be tempted by a sacrament."

However, being Chesterton, it does have the one typical criticism (other than making other writers boring), that the tremendously fat Catholic lightly leaps from topic to topic like the mountain goat from crag to crag, or the Hollywood star from blonde to blonde, and we end up not really knowing a whole lot more about St. Francis. But who reads books by Chesterton in order to learn about some narrow topic? You might as well hike solely in order to lose weight, or make love to your wife for the sole purpose of manufacturing babies, ignoring all of the pleasure to be gained from how delightful God made the path.

View all my reviews

Elise

2011-02-05T16:25:00.000-08:00

None of mine are ever finished, but here are a few in various stages of modification. All suggestions are welcomed; most are ignored. Some of my loyal (and doubtlessly dozing) readers know the topics, but to the ignorant masses (if two can be called a mass): Gizmo is a tortoise-shell kitten that shall eternally be a kitten, no matter how old she gets. Elise I shall not explain: if you know, good; if not, better.

Most of my poems read best if you're slightly drunk (or have your eyes closed), but feel free to endure these, should you so desire.

Gizmo's Eve

A boneless, purring Pollock in a cooling pool of light;
marcescent day, marasmic sun, Undomiel Evenstar within
the guarded, growing dark. Beneath, vino del mar
has dauncing myrfolk drunk: dream through the dawn of night.

Engraving Hearts and Stone

“I know not why, why lovers, lovers die.”
Thus, Lewis’ angel, spying mortals, longs
to taste the cup (caressed by envious eye)
of pain, while we? We’re screaming mordant songs
of loves undone to never be regained,
“That long disease, our life”—a damned blockade
of raging death, affections merely feigned—
yes, gladly with the angel we would trade.
Yet, what means water to a sated earth?
And what, to those who cannot die, is life?
The brightest buds are those that bloom in dearth.
Thus, joy and pain, conjoined within my wife—
who sweetly smiled while ragged on the rack—
wrought more on earth than just her granite plaque.

Elise

12.20.10

Her eyes were as leaves in the late autumn air;
her eyes sank with sun to the sea
as the maiden, she watched with a watchmaker’s care
and God gave to her no one but me.

Alone of the world the wood-maiden’s thrall.
“The rose had the look of a flower”
but a flower unlooked, the wall
high-built about her bower.

“The world around has little ruth,”
too well her soul now knows,
a lovely maid who has not youth:
a sea of unspoiled snow.

Yet love has grown and has not died
through birth and death and birth—
bodies, seeds and loves denied
she’s planted in the earth.

Her eyes are as leaves in the late April air,
her love is a seed under snow,
and the girl will not watch with a gardener’s care,
for God shall make it grow.

Sorry Jethro

2011-02-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

I'm apologizing. New posts shall be forthcoming; I just finished the last Rumpole that our library offers, then followed it up with a nice big chunk of Wodehouse, neither of which shall I insult with a review of my own. Suffice to say, read Wodehouse and Mortimer every chance you get. Mortimer is a later author, and was strongly influenced by Wodehouse, but tends to be slightly more substantive if a great deal less humorous.

Blessings,
JB

Snatch From His Hand the Balance and the Rod,

2010-12-18T02:31:00.000-08:00

I'm introducing a poem written by Jonathan Ashbach, inspired by Milton, with a segment of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man. Cause I feel like it.

Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such;
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his justice, be the god of God.
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies!
Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels men rebel...

Abdiel
by Jonathan Ashbach

Ten thousand angry hosts of hosts
Sure ranks of vicious peers
The shining angel compass round
Encroaching on him while the sound
Of heav’nly arrows raging round
Comes winging to his ears.

His brothers on him press all in,
The tarnished angels hurry near
And thunders to and fro are thrown
And swords of heaven meet his own
While horns as old as God are blown
Yet none of them he fears.

Yet suddenly the tumult stills;
The violent host is awed.
The thronging armies all give way
And yet they yield not him the day,
For on is coming, so they say,
Their captain and their god.

Dread liege of darkness great
Lord Lucifer the proud
Advances ‘mongst his serried friends.
Dark is his face; dark are his ends
And evil are the words he sends
While shouts he thus aloud.

“Dost thou alone, poor Abdiel
Dost thou alone remain?
True to the hea’nly potentate
Who gives us being, makes us great
And makes us serve with sugared hate
To luminate his reign?

“Thou fool,” cried Satan “Fool to stand,
Against thy brothers gathered here
Who shake their fists at tyranny
And rise aloft, nor bend the knee.
But serve thy master! art thou free?
Should slavery endure?

“For freedom shouldst thou give thy strength,
Not serve the master’s law.
One third of heaven claims its right;
The others soon will join our fight
And make the great king feel our might
And taste our puissance raw!

“No more shall we the Tyrant serve
Nor yet the Tyrant’s son.
But each in heav’n shall have a say
By our joint counsel make our way
And all made equal, thus today
My kingdom is begun!

“My seat shall be the utmost north
Above the stars of God.
The congregation has begun
To worship me, the morning’s son
Who gives them freedom from the One
Who wrests from us our laud!”

Thus spake the Seraph, haughty, proud
As seated on a throne
And his hosts gan roar and cry aloud
And down before him they all bowed
And Satan, worshiped by the crowd
Named Abdiel his own.

Not flinched mighty Abdiel,
But met the traitor’s eye
And stood celestial, silent power
Met Satan’s gaze by hour and hour
Until the prince did shake and cower
Beneath the azure sky.

Then answered mighty Abdiel
And he leaned upon his sword
Which flashed like lightening near and far
That the rebels gathered as for war
Each soon to be a fallen star
Might tremble at his word.

“Cursed be thou, once lord of light
Who stood before the Father’s throne
And falsely praised the tripart name,
That name above each earthly name
Proclaimed its everlasting fame
Of which thou now dost moan.

“Thou prince of heaven were, might be,
Yet to be rebel, traitor chose.
For God would have thee as a son
Yet thou wouldst be the only one,
Wouldst see the will of God undone
Lest primacy you loose.

“You see the glory of our God
Yet worship not the same,
But covet God’s eternal right
And think to try the maker’s might
Who gives you being by his light
Sustains you by His name.

How can you ask what right has right?
How try your strength on God?
Will you master his infinity?
Make the maker bend to you on knee?
Tame him whose slightest work you be?
Break the world-dashing rod?

“Thus hear the doom of heaven sure:
Your wish th’Almighty fills.
Thou art the crown, the cornerstone
The king eternal on thy throne.
None equal thee; thou art alone
Your place is that you will.

Yet God is good, and God alone
And you, without Him must,
A lord of heaven cease to be
Nor heaven’s good may build, may see
By your free will, good is to thee
As evil is to us.

“The chains you broke were chains of God
Full light; not willful bound.
From service to good thou hast been set free;
From the path of right he has given thee
Your choice of faith or liberty
And the morning star fell down.

“Your throne is pinnacled on ill;
You kingdom is corrupt.
Cast down from heaven into hell
By your own magic, your own spell
You’ll drink the dregs of your own well
With which you’ve filled your cup.

Then know your maker, know his wrath;
When the Day of Judgment comes!
God sees your heart; he knows your thought;
For Heaven’s books your name he blots.
What is not good shall soon be naught.
Go, then, to your new home!”

Thus spoke the seraph, and he turned
And strode swift from their seat.
None dared oppose him, blocked his path
But sat amazed, awaiting wrath.
Yet none returned, nor ever hath
And God hurled them forth to the deep.

For of the Bailey

2010-12-14T02:44:00.000-08:00

Rumpole was.

A delightful quote from John Mortimer's (who is a British author comparable to a slightly more serious and less talented Wodehouse) "Rumpole of the Bailey" shall follow, but first, a bit of background. Rumpole is a short, fat, brilliant barrister (lawyer, to a Brit) who chain smokes cigars, quotes poetry (especially Wordsworth), swills claret, never pleads guilty and never prosecutes--and never asks if his client is guilty, lest they say yes. He is as cynical, jovial and witty a character as you could hope to meet. He also refers to his wife as "She Who Must Be Obeyed."

While standing before a judge in a libel suit, he is cross-examining a smarmy female author of romantic historical fiction of the most sappy and sentimental type. He has already mentioned that the hardest part of preparing for his case was having to read through--rather, endure--some of her books, and he has commented to a friend of his that it is simply inconceivable for someone who writes such terrible prose not to have some other serious faults, so we can understand what type of author this is.

Anyway, he asks the judge, a major fan of Ms. Nettleship, our authoress, for permission to read a section from one of her books. The judge, delighted, settles back and says, "Oh, yes. Isn't that the one that ends happily?" To which Rumpole responds, "Happily all Ms. Nettleship's books end... eventually."

In another story, he is defending a liberal minister from an adultery charge (he was innocent), and meets the loud, ill behaved and extremely combative children--they are always attacking each other with whatever weapons lie to hand--of said minister. What are their names? Martin and Erasmus.

I like Rumpole.

We Should Not Give Our Sons a Stone

2010-12-13T01:55:00.000-08:00

To A Thousand Generations by Douglas Wilson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is essential. God says "suffer the little children to come unto me," and we say "as soon as they make a confession of faith." God says, "unless ye become as little children," and we say, "unless you little children become like adults..." Again and again we turn the Gospel on its head, and nowhere is this more prevalent than in our covenantal unfaithfulness. We rail against the new Molech embodied in the abomination of abortion, even as we Spiritually starve our own children. This book is an essential read for any Christian who has or may have children.

No, baptism does not de facto save. No, it does not remove parental obligation: on the contrary, it increases it. But neither does our sinful lack of faith abrogate the eternal promises of God, the promises that we refuse to accept.

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I Always Knew Jacoby was a Welsh Name

2010-12-13T01:53:00.000-08:00

A Rare Benedictine: The Advent of Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The origins of Cadfael should take a bit more telling. Very short, very quick reads: you barely begin and you're on the next story, so they're neither memorable nor all that interesting. But, they are short, which at times is good. I spent a total of one half hour on all three stories, so if you're looking for a half hour read and don't feel like descending to the waiting room magazines explaining why the world is ending tomorrow because of the fundamentalist nutjobs like me, this is your book.

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From the Father of Bertram

2010-12-13T01:47:00.001-08:00

Psmith in the City by P.G. Wodehouse

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

More Wodehousian fun. My current favorite character, the debonair, erudite, garrulous socialist Psmith (the P is silent) ends up "working" in a bank. Absolutely delightful.

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For Guthrum was a Dread King,

2010-12-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

Like death out of the North.

The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great by Benjamin R. Merkle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was great. I had to return to it after I created some distance twixt it and Wodehouse (lest I judge with weighted scales), and I loved it. A solid, sober (but not at all boring) account of The Great Alfred. Very informative, very thoroughly researched (we can catch a glimpse of this from the smatterings of Anglo-Saxon that he sows), and it moves like a freight train. A very worthwhile book, and an essential book for any student of English history.

Though, I must confess, my favorite section was the great display of Viking wisdom as they sacked "Rome".

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Not Anti-Blake, but Sounds Like it

2010-11-30T16:36:00.000-08:00

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having re-read this, I cannot wait for the movie (N.D. Wilson is writing the screenplay or something like that). And George MacDonald!!! Yes! Referred to simply as "the teacher" in many places, the noble Scotsman permeates the second half of the book.

Tragic, lovely, heartbreaking and glorious, this book is a theological treatise on the afterlife in the way that Chesterton's Orthodoxy is a description of the Roman Catholic Church, which is to say, not even remotely. It is rather more like a semi-whimsical view of sin and its long-term effects: a tour of heaven made by the citizens of hell/purgatory (which Lewis brilliantly places in a tiny crack in the ground of heaven).

My favorite theme in this book is that of the ethereal verse solid, though it drove me to distraction the first time I heard it, as I'd spent a solid six months working out the exact same theory. In a nutshell: we tend to view God and all things Spiritual as ghostlike, and therefore unnoticeable to us. It would be more accurate to reverse that, to view God as the mountain that we break upon as a mist.

Magnificent book. A must read.

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Not to be Confused With Wormtongue...

2010-11-30T16:35:00.000-08:00

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

How does one review this book? It is simply one that a person must read. And please don't be stupid about it ("he believes that there's a demon assigned to everyone! Heresy!!!"). If you're reading this book like that, please don't read Pilgrim's Progress. Or any poetry. Actually, just stick with the World Book Encyclopedia and Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of Every Language Known to Civilized Man and the French.

It is a magnificent book, and loaded with commonplaces and Spiritual insights.

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His Prose be Not of Ruth

2010-11-30T16:19:00.000-08:00

The Discovery of Genesis: How the Truths of Genesis Were Found Hidden in the Chinese Language by C.H. Kang

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Reading this, I felt like I was watching a "doctor" named Bubba offering to start an epidural with his chainsaw. There was absolutely fascinating material that was good enough to make the rest of the book worth it, but then there was other material. The author--and this was simply tragic--offered opinions that were his very own. I honestly don't know if he could have destroyed his ethos more if he claimed to be the reincarnation of Jerry Garcia. Adam and Eve apparently were covered in an imitation of God's Glory Cloud, complete with glowing flames, and this disappeared when, as a terrible surprise to God, Eve disobeyed. Adam nobly followed along out of his undying love for his bride--not because he was too lazy to do anything while he was there with her (a fact that went right over our illustrious author's head), nor because Eve was the world's first guinea pig--no, it was a noble action. To make matters even worse, he helpfully fills out Scripture wherever he feels that God forgot to make a necessary entry.

However, the sheer quality of the material did almost make up for that. I got to the point where I skimmed the prose to minimize rage (if someone's going to say something really stupid in a book, they ought to have the decency to make the book large enough to be worth beating your head against) until I hit parts that involved Chinese characters.

The thesis of this book is that whoever compiled the pictographic language of (primarily Mandarin) Chinese had knowledge of the Genesis account, and embedded it into the language. The evidence for this is primarily found in which radicals, which are the building blocks of the Mandarin language that have a distinct meaning of their own, in which radicals are combined to make another word. For example: the word "covet" is comprised of the radical that signifies a woman combined with two of the radicals that mean tree. So, when someone writes covet in Mandarin, they put a woman and two trees together. And there are many, many astonishing examples of this, though not nearly so many as our author thinks there are. He's got a hammer, and everything begins to bear an uncanny resemblance to the head of a nail.

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Charles in Barge (Or a Bright Pink Viking Ship)

2010-11-28T05:59:00.000-08:00

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I quite enjoyed it: a nice, clear list of "villains," though why Charlie is the hero is almost a bit ambiguous; the difference is his politeness, his obedience, and it one case, his honesty. Good for a family read when kids are young.

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Here be Dragons

2010-11-27T16:51:00.000-08:00

Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture by Peter J. Leithart

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With his usual erudition and clarity, Leithart first illuminates problems we were unaware of then solves them, all with so slight an effort and so almost offhanded a manner that it is impossible not to be swept at least a little bit down the current of his thought. And why would one try to resist?

This book is magnificent. It largely focuses on the ninth chapter of John, the healing of the blind man (the one who is sent to Siloam with clay on his eyes). Leithart then begins to unfold it, layer by layer, meaning by meaning, interpretation by interpretation, providing a solid year's worth of sermons to any desperate preacher. Most of the time, he does not so much enter the room as demonstrate that there is a justifiable door to be opened. Van Till stated that Scripture is absolutely authoritative with regard to everything it addresses, and that it addresses absolutely everything. Leithart's interpretations are the beginning of a demonstration of that. We are pulled from Genesis through to Revelation, and all of it the great Totus Christus: what it means in the abstract and how it affects us, the body. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

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Our Wills and Fates Do So Contrary Run...

2010-11-24T17:53:00.000-08:00

Had I simply refrained from seeking counsel, I could have started a cult by now. At least I know better than to make the same mistake twice: next time, I publish first, and apply a liberal dose of Alexander Pope to the critics ("damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer. Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike").

Below is the sarcophagus in which I have laid the remains of him who once laid low the nations, the great argument I was working on.

Our verse for dissection today, familiar and favorite of every teenager on the planet, is the fourth verse of the last chapter of the glorious book of Ephesians, which in the KJV reads "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." In the Greek, "Καὶ οἱ πατέρες, μὴ παροργίζετε τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀλλὰ ἐκτρέφετε αὐτὰ ἐν παιδείᾳ καὶ νουθεσίᾳ κυρίου." Pay especial attention to the fourth word from the end: παιδεια, hereafter simply "paideia" to save me clicking that little flag too many times. It simply means tutelage, with an implication of discipline.

Here is my thesis in a sentence: the wrath spoken of in the first half of the verse should be understood as the wrath of God.

My reasons for this are fairly simple. To begin with, there is the problem with how we typically interpret this verse, the "don't make your kids mad" approach. Even Mennonites, who diligently discipline and spank their children beginning in the first trimester, often exasperate their children. Every godly parent has to deal with furious two year-olds who find their otherwise intelligent parents inexplicably immune to flawless logic ("I want it." "You can't have it." "But I want it..."), and what parent, raising their child to love and serve God would honestly say that they have never made their child mad?

How then can we contrast making your child mad with raising them in the paideia of God? The latter does not exclude the former, it necessarily includes it. If the contrasting of the first and second half of the verse ("do not make your child angry, but rather...") does not work, then our interpretation of either the first half or second half must be in error. Otherwise, we accuse Paul of saying something along the lines of "do not go outside in the rain, but rather go outside when it's wet." The two are by no means mutually exclusive.

The only ambiguity in the verse appears in the first half, and is not at first glance obvious: "do not provoke your children to wrath..." The ambiguity lies in the fact that the indirect object, wrath, is not specifically possessed. Our assumption of it being the children's wrath is entirely due to their mutual proximity in the verse, as well as a lack of other potential owners.

However, there is a simple solution: could not the wrath belong to God as an understood possessor? He is, after all, the owner of the paideia in the second half of the sentence, and we do this type of thing (same subject for multiple objects) on a regular basis. Also, in context, it agrees with the rest of Scripture: simply read Proverbs for a Biblical view of a parent's responsibility regarding their children. The foolish child brings shame to his parents.

The other options I have found to be either weak or to do more violence to the text than this one does. You either have to import something into the sentence that simply is not there, or imply a great deal that is not implied on the first reading. This interpretation simply applies the explicit ownership (paideia of God) in the second half of the sentence to the first half of the sentence, and only does that because without that, the sentence does not make sense.

That was the interpretation I was working on. It was, however, quite neatly dismantled by Mike Lawyer's offhand comment: "parallel passage." Oopsie. So, I am a somewhat sadder, but greatly(?) wiser Jesse: I've now read Colossians.

Blessings all: I'll post new heresies as I invent them.

Jesse B

The Downside of Up

2010-11-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

Is that when you're really high up, most other things are down. Even things that would normally be up. And, having just finished (for the seventh time, third for the series) Dorothy Dunnett's Checkmate, I am roughly astral. It has taken its place on my shelf next to Tolkien. Save Tolkien, I have never read a more devastating, lovely ending, and I have never seen so much tension built so skillfully, and relieved with such a shattering release. If the next month of books get poor reviews, take them with a grain of salt: I'm still descending.

Eternal Optimism of the Open Mind

2010-11-08T23:33:00.000-08:00

Anybody who thinks that you can give the FDA complete control over what you can put in your mouth, and not set up a bidding war in the food industry as a consequence, is a person who probably has a very sunny disposition, and who is routinely surprised at what people do to him. Every morning is a new day.

--Doug Wilson, Blog and Mablog
www.dougwils.com
"Surly Almost"

"Looking Like a Virgin on the Lip of a Volcano..."

2010-11-08T23:25:00.000-08:00

The Trials of Rumpole by John Mortimer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Just another great read from Mortimer: though not on par with Wodehouse, he often has simply delightful turns of phrase: "but in the courtroom he has the confidence of a rather reclusive hare looking into the headlights of an oncoming car," or "she engaged in an extremely dangerous diet consisting of organic vegetation and ice water." He reminds me, in a way, of an almost Chestertonian figure: fat, jolly (usually), delights in food and alcohol, cigars and poetry, witty and could politely peel you like a banana in an argument. Highly recommended.

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The Cartleginians

2010-11-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

Alexander the Great by Paul Anthony Cartledge

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have a request to make. Could all of you "scientifically respectable" authors who decide to, for the sake of being on the cutting edge of whatever you're writing about, just make a statement in the beginning of your book. The statement should be along the lines of "Just to let my readers know, I hate God, and I don't believe in Him, so all dates will be marked as 'Before Common Era' and 'Common Era.' Just so you know." And how is replacing the Latin "anno domini" with the English "common era" more politically correct? We can't have God in there anywhere, but we have no problem replacing him with America? This bugs me. I think any author that does this should be required by law to only order "Freedom Fries" at any restaurant that serves them, just to be consistent.

But the book was good, about Alexander, the Great Alexander the Second, son of Philip of Macedon. Worth reading.

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If the Category is Small Enough

2010-11-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

You're always first.

Thank you C. J. Mahaney: click on my title for a link to what I shall without hesitation call the best rap song regarding the Heidelberg Catechism that I have ever heard.

When Church Starts With This Prayer

2010-11-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

And the rest is by no means downhill, indeed, you have communion following an election exhortation by Doug Wilson and a Reformational sermon by Peter Leithart, all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. What a glorious Lord's Day!

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 01, 2010

Pastoral Prayer for Reformation Sunday and All Saints' Day
Almighty God, Father, Son, and Spirit, Creator of the heavens and the earth, You spoke this universe by the Word of Your power, and You continually uphold it all by that same Word, and by the mighty working of Your Spirit.

And therefore we praise You and we worship You, as the only God, the only true God. You are Holy and Mighty and Gracious and Just and all Glorious. And we know this because this world and its story is full of Your glory. You framed the heavens and the earth and filled them with treasures, and when we disdained that gift and reached for our own glory, You sent us out into the world. But your grace has followed us down through the ages. And in the seed of the woman you have told and are telling an amazing story.

We give you thanks for righteous Abel who offered worship to you in faith though His brother hated him and spilled his blood on the earth. We praise you for faithful Enoch who walked with you and for Noah who was a preacher of righteousness and the judgment to come. We praise you for Abram who left his father’s house and went to a foreign land on the basis of Your promises. Thank you for the faith of Sarah who laughed when you promised her a son in her old age. Thank you for Rebekah who believed the promise of God and tricked her husband into obeying you. Thank you for the faith of Jacob who blessed his rebellious sons and trusted Your promises despite all appearances. Thank you for Joseph who did not compromise with his master’s wife to stay out of trouble. Thank you for the faith of the midwives who disobeyed the king’s wicked order to kill the Hebrew boys. Thank you for the faithfulness of Moses though Israel was stubborn and hard-hearted. We praise you for Rahab who hid the spies and lied to the soldiers who were looking for them. Thank you for her grace and cunning. Thank you for Joshua who taught the people how to destroy cities with trumpets. And for Gideon who knew that every battle belongs to You. And we worship you for Deborah and Barak and Jael, and we praise you for Sisera’s head crushed by a tent peg. Thank you for David who was a man after Your own heart; thank you for his faith and courage and for his sling and for the songs that he sang. Thank you for Jeremiah and Ezekiel; thank you for Micah and Jonah and Malachi, prophets who declared Your word fearlessly despite the consequences, despite the shame, despite their inadequacies.

Thank you for Matthew who wrote his gospel by faith. Thank you for the Apostle Paul and Timothy and Titus his disciples who were also faithful pastors and evangelists. Thank you for Phoebe who was a faithful servant of Paul and the church in Cenchrea. We don’t know much about her, but she reminds us of how there were so many faithful saints in those early days of the church who suffered and sacrificed and served gladly for the sake of the Kingdom. We thank you for St. Stephen the first Christian martyr who saw our Lord Jesus in the sky and did not flinch when they stoned him to death. Thank you for Ignatius who was devoured by lions because of his love for you. Thank you for Eustachius and Germanicus and Polycarp and Justin and Irenaeus and Hippolitus and Lawrence and Alban and Sebastian, and the countless thousands of others who gave their lives willingly for the sake of Christ, who did not consider their lives more valuable than the salvation You have won for us. We praise you for mothers who watched their children burned at the stake, and we praise you for children who were faithful even to death.

We thank you for Constantine who loved you and ended the persecution of Your people. We thank you for Athanasius and Augustine and Ambrose and Leo and Gregory. Thank you for Boniface and Bede; and for all those nameless scribes who copied out the Scriptures faithfully over the centuries so that we might have them today in our hands. Thank you for Thomas Acquinas and John Huss and Wycliffe and Calvin and Bucer and Luther. And thank you for Luther’s wife, Katie. We praise you for Cranmer and Hooper and Latimer and the many faithful Huguenots who were slaughtered for their love of the cross. We give you thanks for John Bunyan and John Foxe and William Carey and George Whitefield and John Wesley for their faithful proclamations of the gospel. We praise you for Hudson Taylor, Gresham Machen, Jim Eliot, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Alexander Schmemann, Bessie Wilson, and Betty Appel.

We praise you for all Christian wives and mothers who have offered their daily labors to their husbands and children with cheerful love of Christ. Thank you for how they have given of themselves in so many small ways rising early, staying up late, making meals, doing laundry, teaching lessons, disciplining, and loving, pouring themselves out, serving gladly, offering their bodies as living sacrifices to you. And we bless them now before Your throne and we give you thanks and praise for them. Thank you for faithful children down through the ages who image what we must become to enter the Kingdom. Thank you for peanut butter and jelly smears on their faces. Thank you for their prayers and their lessons. Thank you for their exuberance. Thank you for the gift of faith you have bestowed upon them. And thank you for the millions of little ones that we have not yet met but who rejoice around Your throne in glory. Thank you for the poor, the sick, the outcasts, the mentally and physically disabled. We thank you for your people who make us laugh, thank you for those who tell stories, thank you for those who remember and help us remember. Thank you for all honorable occupations. Thank you for hard, honest work. Thank you for secretaries and auto mechanics, thank you for writers and missionaries, thank you for doctors and nurses and accountants and artists. Thank you for teachers and deacons, thank you for coaches and architects and pilots and janitors and senators. We praise you for your people in China and Russia and Egypt and Ivory Coast and Columbia and Mexico and Finland and Italy and France and Iraq and Afghanistan and Myanmar. We thank you and we praise you for all your saints, all your faithful down through the centuries, and we praise you for those who are still yet to come, that innumerable company of saints yet to play their part on the stage. We thank you that in the gift of the Spirit you have rushed us up into the heavenly places and that by Your mighty working we are united to all your saints throughout time and space and that in a mystery we are bound together in Christ.

Our gracious God and Father, we are undone by your goodness, we are glad, and we are deeply grateful to you. But we are most deeply thankful for our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Holy One of Israel, the One who has been anointed with the fullness of Your Holy Spirit, the One in Whom all saints find their rest. We praise you for our Lord Jesus Christ who is the only begotten Son of God and who is the seed of the woman come to crush the serpent’s head. And we give thanks to You for all Your people chiefly because in them we have seen Christ manifested. For You have poured out His Spirit on all flesh, and You have begun to remake this world by Your wonderful grace and love.

And so we worship You now, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for You are worthy of all glory and praise, unto ages of ages. Amen!

Guilty By Reason of Insanity

2010-10-27T11:03:00.001-07:00

"After a minute or two I again started to rise. 'Don't worry, Marie. I'll be back. We'll have plenty of time to talk,' I reassured her.

Marie continued to stare at me, but was having trouble speaking. Her eyes, peering out through their monstrous frames, grew larger, as if they were trying to express what her lips could not. Once more, in soft, pleading tones, Marie repeated, 'Don't go. There's something I have to tell you.'

I remained in my seat and waited... A minute. Two minutes. Three minutes went by. I snuck a look at my watch. It was well past five and the investigator was waiting...

I rose. 'Don't worry, Marie, I'll be back soon...' I picked up my papers and walked to the door, turning my back on Marie. I placed my hand on the door-knob and started to turn it.

Suddenly from behind me came a voice the timbre of which I shall never forget. It was deep. It was male. And it had the menacing quality of a lion about to strike. Low, guttural came the familiar words, 'Don't go. There's something I have to tell you.' I could not move, even to turn around. My hand was fixed to the doorknob, but I could feel the fine hairs on my arms rise, and I shivered. Then slowly, so as not to ruffle the beast behind me, I turned and stared."

Wow. Another one of those books whose subject matter makes up for any defects in writing. The prose is quite readable, if nothing to write home about, but I found myself gripped as if by Gladwell the entire time I was reading this tremendous, horrific book.

First, a few cautions: there is cussing, as there are a number of actual interviews transcribed. The worldview is overly modern: there appears to be no such thing as an actual villain, except those that damaged the poor murderers. Had they been her subjects, I'm sure she would have found out what damaged them, and she would have been equally correct. But this mentality that is willing to condemn no one actually condemns everyone: had the abusers of the abusive parents been condemned, the parents would have been spared, and by extension, the killers themselves, and at the far end, their victims. With the killers condemned, the chain is broken at whatever link is given to us to find, and I will apologetically say that at least more potential victims are spared, though I know that this is no consolation to the link of the chain waiting on death row. True justice will be done at the very end. We who condemn them here must say that "there, but for the grace of God..." And, condemn them we must.

Dr. Lewis was one of a team of two doctors that interviewed a number of death row inmates as a result of their work with juvenile delinquents. Her findings are simply appalling. How much damage can one person suffer before being shattered beyond repair, even perhaps beyond culpability? At what point does the victim become the villain? And how many fathers will be judged guilty for the murders that their sons committed? Is there a point at which a human nature is so warped by abuse that its perpetuation of it is simply a foregone conclusion? And if so, to what extent should they be held accountable?

Forgive my apparent irreverence, but the God that told the cripple to pick up his bed and walk also put him on that bed in the first place. And there were many cripples who received no miraculous healing. Is it true that God makes men cripples and bids them walk? Yes. But He alone knows how to judge actions in light of circumstances; He alone knows the intricacies of cause and effect with regard to the human mind and soul.

This exploration of the minds of killers--those who have raped nuns, tortured and murdered girls barely in their teens, even killed apparently for the sheer pleasure of killing--destroyed any idea that I had regarding a simple, straight-forward culpability. I think God's declaration "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed" would often be an act of mercy for the killer, as well as for the family of the victim and any future victim that may have been. The torture endured by these killers is staggering. I have heard of torture, but had never seen so direct a correlation between the desolate capacity of humans for cruelty and the sheer level of destruction and death that results from it.

Now, as to the primary topic of the book, and my chief interest in it.

Those of you who know my dad know that he is both one of the sweetest and scariest men out there, and, incongruous as these may seem, they dwell fully within the same man. How if they were magnified? Multiplied, even? Would they reach a point where the violence that can both endure and engender the extremes of cruelty in this world and the kindness that would alleviate them with bleeding hands would finally be irreconcilable, would finally tear away from each other, each taking portions of the man with them? This seems to have been the case with many, many of these killers; this seems to be the foundation of what is known as Multiple Personality Disorder (also more recently called Dissociative Identity Disorder): the "host," unable to cope with the sheer horror of his life, withdraws, and "alters," aspects of the host's personality--often violence and toughness--magnified into actual, individual people appear. People with different names, values, expressions, voices (including accents and vocabularies), interests, genders, diseases (such as diabetes), memories and visual acuity: people who can "take the pain" that their often despised host couldn't, people who hate the other alters sharing the host's body, people that are confident of their survival regardless of the death of the host, people that are, in one appalling instance, even willing to receive the lethal injection in the host's place, to protect him. After all, she knew that he (the host) wasn't the one who had committed the crime. She knew who had. Truly separate, distinct, individual people. The body and the brain are the only things shared.

Dr. Lewis' point in all of this is obviously the exculpation of her patients. And one cannot help but sympathize with her, though I must apologetically disagree. It is a shattering book. Horrifically informative, and very much worth the read.

A Fondness For Sedley

2010-10-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ah, the great fun of fiction. This was just a great read, though I felt a bit like I was taking a compressed and selective course of Great British Isles Poets. We had cross dressing heroines falling in love with their oblivious male companions ("Go then and take her. But henceforth direct thy feet where thou and I may never meet," or, "Is that the meaning of accost?" Or even, "Dost thou live by thy music?" "No sir, I live by the church." "Art thou a churchman?" "No such matter sir; I do live by the church, for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church."). Then we have the heroes dressing up as friars (if anyone speaks to you, just say "Pax vobiscum," cross them and keep walking), the vilification of the ever-vilified Richard Crookback, and on and on. But it was so much fun! "Well, I suppose that marriage is like death, and comes to all men."

Truly, a delightful read. Light, fun, historically inaccurate but in a way not easily noticed. Just an all-around great time. Highly recommended.

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The Bad Monster

2010-10-18T17:34:00.000-07:00

Dracula by Bram Stoker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was unsure about it at first, but it has definitely grown on me. Coming from the far side of the genre, it's chief problem is the predictability: I know how it ends, and the getting there isn't that big of a surprise.

One of the greatest strengths of this book is that, in a sense, it's the Napoleon Dynamite of Vampire (hear me out on this). Napoleon Dynamite gave the lie to the ten-thousand movies that worshiped the Prom God: you're a dork and your life is hell, but then you win the prom and the guy likes you and you get a scholarship and all ends happily, right? In Napoleon Dynamite, they won the prom, and nothing changed. They were still morons. Well, in all the modern teeny-bopper "vampyre" stories, the vampires (or at least some of them) are the heroes, the misunderstood homicidal psychopaths. Their parents just didn't love them enough, and nobody understands them. They're sexy and desirable and dangerous and mysterious, basically everything that no intelligent girl with a halfway decent father should want (which is probably why they're selling so well: we have crappy absentee dads raising stupid, self-immolating daughters). Well, Bram Stoker's Dracula? Not so much. He's dangerous and diabolical, a demon in human shape. He's the actual villain--seriously--the monster is the bad guy. I never would have thought of that. He takes the vile child-slaughtering demon, and actually vilifies him. Poor, misunderstood little monster. Of course, this was written in 1897 and was still widely read in 1997 and may yet be in 2097, whereas Stephanie Meyer will be largely lost by 2057--just a few single moms setting their own daughters on the path to seek out that dangerous lover.

One of the more fascinating things about the book is the way that he avoids (or at least minimizes) the whole "he said" at the end of every line of dialogue: the entire thing is either letters or diary entries. The entire thing. It's really kind of brilliant, and actually works really well, due to the dramatic flair that some of his character's have. It also seems that it would make it a good deal more difficult, as every couple chapters you have to have a different character telling the story, so you have to put an entirely different emotional spin on each of the events, etc. But, he pulls it off quite well.

A good read so far, and I expect to enjoy the end.

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John 1 Shall be Continued

2010-10-15T00:46:00.000-07:00

I have not forgotten to continue in John 1, I'm just a bit slow in grasping the importance of the next section. I'll state my questions, and perhaps my readers shall proffer opinions (ideally helpful ones: please refrain from criticizing my parent's failings in the contraceptive department; they knew not who they spawned).

Not surprisingly, John 1:35-51 is a chiasm. However, there is an absolutely fascinating shift that takes place between the first half (preceding John 1:43 "follow me", which I hold to be the chiastic center) and the second, and I don't yet understand what John is telling us with it.

1. The most notable shift is in the language: in the first half he translates both "Rabbi" and "Messiah" from the Hebrew into Greek, but in the second half, he doesn't bother: he simply leaves them in Hebrew, and they are from this point assimilated into the Greek vocabulary.

2. Also, he translates Simon Peter's name in the first half: Σιμον becomes Κεφας, which means Πετρος: (Simon, Cephas, Petros), but in the second Simon and Cephas simply disappear, and we are left with the translation of Cephas from Hebrew into Greek: Peter. This is another pregnant ("is that the word I'm looking for, Jeeves?" "Yes, sir.") shift. And, I think it is significant that Christ refers to Peter (in the first half) as Simon the son of Jonah, but I'm already swimming in my time-honored tradition of one nostril above the surface, so I'm not pushing any further: I've got enough that I don't understand already.

My understanding of the significance of this, and my current overall thesis for John chapter one is twofold, and is as follows:

1). John 1 begins in a Jewish perspective, aimed almost solely at the Jews, but... 2). ends in a Jewish/Greek perspective, aimed at the Jews in particular, but also inclusive of the Greek world.

Defense for this thesis:

1.a. The language solidly links John 1 to Genesis 1, as any Jew would know and as no one unfamiliar with the Jewish Scriptures would realize: "εν αρχε εν ο λογος" ("en arche en ha logos:" in the beginning was the word, which is obviously a reference to "בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים" ("bereshit bera elohiym:" in the beginning, created God).
1.b. The order links John to the creation account in Genesis 1, as any Jew would know and as no one unfamiliar with the Jewish Scriptures would realize: God/Word, then God/Light: "וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י אֹ֑ור" (Said God, let there be light).

2. The shift in the narrative focus from a Jew speaking to an audience of Jews (John 1:1-1:43) to a Greek-friendly narration (John 1:38-51). You will notice the overlap, but I feel that it's accurate.

Qualification:

1. This is obviously extremely rough and oversimplified with an almost blasphemous nescient nonchalance: the entire text is for the entire world. However the author is telling us something important not only with what he says, but also with how he says it.

More posts will follow as I continue to dig; in the meantime, feel free to give me whatever input you like, if you like. At the moment I'm mostly trying to assemble my thoughts cogently, but nothing serves to tighten a shield-wall like a light arrow-fire from the opposition, so please: let them fly.

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

Ahithophel as Judas, 2 of 2

2010-10-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

This post is the (much shorter) second of two, and is simply meant to demonstrate the similarities between Ahithophel and Judas, and their respective betrayals. I was expecting to find more than this, but didn't.

First, the obvious: each betrayed God's anointed king to those who desired his death, and each committed suicide (by hanging) rather than repent and seek mercy. However, each was ultimately foiled. So far as Absalom and the Pharisees: each hated the true king out of jealousy and sought to take his place, and each had grievances against the true king (whether real or imagined).

Well, that's all for now; on to the next question, which I'll invent sometime soon.

Blessings,
JB

Ahithophel and Judas

2010-10-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

Ahithophel seems to be--almost--a mixed character. He is wise, which would intimate godly, especially when his counsel is said to be as the very words of God, and his betrayal of David is a just betrayal, if such a thing exists, in light of the offense done to him by David. He is also a parallel to Judas, as will be shown a bit more later on.

To begin with, Uriah was one of David's mighty men, and his wife was Ahithophel's granddaughter (2 Samuel 11:3, 23:24, 23:39, 1 Chronicles 11:41). (On a side note that I may pursue later, the fact that Uriah's home could be seen from the palace suggests that the most loyal/mighty men were given homes surrounding the palace in which the king dwelled, which could possibly mirror the guard of the Tabernacle in which God dwelt, Num. 3:38 among others. And anyone that doesn't immediately embrace this is a heretic.) Due to the wisdom of Ahithophel and the public nature of David's sin (2 Samuel 12:14), there is no conceivable way that Ahithophel was not aware of what David had done, and no doubt had some feelings about it that could be described as "less than ecstatic." His granddaughter's husband, a very prominent, noble and godly man, was murdered, and his granddaughter was getting married to the murderer.

So, when Absalom rebelled, how would that look to a wise man who was well acquainted with the justice of God, and had explicit and personal knowledge of David's gross sin? Obviously, God had judged David unfit to be king, and was replacing him. After all, David's decline, which is brutally marked, began with Bathsheba. He is never again portrayed in a kingly fashion. His weakness is what is noted, his lack of leadership, his lack of strength, his lack of initiative, his lack of knowledge of the affairs of his kingdom, his lack of foresight, even his lack of sexual interest, in bitter irony: through grasping for sex he loses his taste for sex (which is a pattern of God's judgment: we follow an evil desire with an evil action, and God lets us, but our judgment is the natural result of that action). Or, should we wish a less favorable light for Ahithophel, when Absalom rebelled, Ahithophel had the only chance he would ever get for revenge.

In either case, he betrayed David (who had horrifically betrayed him), and aimed to kill him with counsel: blood for blood. As a result of betraying God's anointed, he is overthrown and chooses to kill himself. This draws an illuminating parallel to Judas, which gives us a new angle on the well-known story of Judas' betrayal, as shown in the next post.

They Seek Him Here...

2010-10-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

The Scarlet Pimpernel, by the illustrious Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi, no, I'm not joking, read from October 08 to 09, 2010

Very obviously written by a woman, with a hefty dose of the romantically absurd/absurdly romantic (a guy actually kissing the ground that his wife walked on, and the balcony she rested her hand on, stuff like that). Kinda reminded me of the "romantic idealism" of the 18-19th centuries, and as such, was utter tripe. But, if you took it in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, and if you have a dangerously high tolerance for romantic nonsense (hint: if I said, "Cat: f-o-x: cat," and you knew what I was quoting, then this is you. Obviously, it is me, as I can both quote this and watch Pride and Prejudice in a single sitting), then you'll probably enjoy it. I wouldn't spend more than a couple days on it, though.

I've noticed: the ridiculously sappy romantic stories always make better movies than books, as you can't portray all the nonsense driveling out of the lead male characters deep, piercing, sensitive eyes, or how the lead female character is so torn between being stupid or demonstrating that she has a functioning brain cell or two. The Ian McKellan (Chauvlin) and whoever else adaptation of this was more well done and more enjoyable than the book in many ways.

All in all, a fun read, but nothing to write a three-paragraph review about. (less)

Thank you Mr. Belloc

2010-10-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

A delightful remark from Hillair Belloc while he was moderating a debate twixt Chesterton and Shaw. And yes, I did just use the word twixt. More than that, I said it, though you probably didn't hear me.

"If the League of Nations could make a war it would be the only thing it ever has made."

Maybe I'll Get Posthumously Published...

2010-10-08T18:32:00.000-07:00

Not really; I have no great desire to ever be published. It is this type of occasion, however, that convinces me to put down my pen and pick up a book. Another unknown, probably never to be known poet that can produce something of this nature? Maybe I'll start writing prose. Her name is Colleen McGarry, and she has been teaching in Iraq for the last four years. Click on my title for a link to the poem on her blog.

After Sorrow comes Hope.

HOPE

Hummingbird heartbeats, hoof beats, a whirring thrum and thrill.
Flight of flicker, fancy, fantasy, fantastic flying yet fearful
Blink and blush, quickly and quietly, keep it buried, keep it below
It could get away, you know.
Skipping, tripping, flipping swiftly slowly silently sounding
Uncatchable; uncageable; unimaginable; so unreal
Barely beyond the brink of minds eye, mine eye
Moody and mopey and dusk, yet merry and maypoles at rising,
My time flies and butterflies and ladybugs and it flies.
Landing only lightly lately like lightning
In a flash, fearsome fire, and it is far fled
Or maybe not, it is near still, to burn and bleed and blossom.
Which peerless path shall it pick to plod or plough?
To turn and till the hearts of all the helpless heavenless hosts
And gift them heaven, a priceless precious princely gift:
Continuing courage, dauntless drive to do what can be done,
But also to bloom, petting petals out upon themselves
To keep and continue, constant, cheerful, cherubic
To lose it is like the loss of life and love and laughter
Celticly knotted, tied and woven with warp and weft
A tearless tapestry of dawning delight.

Guitar Music

2010-10-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

I've recently been going through Bart Hopkin's album After Seven Years, and have found it to be quite good (if you like good guitar with minimal accompaniment). Click on my title for samples. I liked it a great deal, and would highly recommend it. My favorite is his rendition of She's Not There by Rod Argent of The Zombies.