There's Beauty in the Bellow

From a classmate's wedding, right before I left Moscow to come home. Dr. Leithart gave the exhortation. Song of Songs 2:16a: “My beloved is mine, and I am his”; 6:3a: “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine”; 7:10: “I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me.” “How are you feeling today?” someone might have asked you. How can you answer? Happy? Excited? Overjoyed? Nervous? None of the normal words is big enough to express the magnitude of this day. You reach for something bigger, and you’re tempted to try something faux-German like “Uber-happy” or faux-Greek like “Hyper-excited.” The emotion of this day is best captured, I submit, by the word “ecstatic.” That’s big enough to get at the joy and delight of your wedding, and, more importantly, it highlights deeper dimensions of what’s happening today, and what you’re committing yourselves to for the unforeseeable future. Etymologically, the word “ecstasy” means “to stand outside,” and that’s what the English derivative meant f

So for my birthday I roasted brussel sprouts with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (from an Ina Garten recipe, though I didn't add parmesan and toasted pine nuts--although I would have loved too). And I made a soup with all my favorite things in it: rutabaga, sweet potato, rosemary, red wine, wild rice, thyme, garlic, carrots and onions. I also added kale ribs while it was simmering for extra flavor. And then for dessert I made brownie pudding/Denver chocolate pudding. I found a Williams Sonoma recipe online, and instead of just plain old boiled water over the top, I first poured the water through Lauryl's aeropress. We have a family version that uses instand coffee powder in the topping, but I was not going to buy instant coffee just to get a tablespoon or so. So I used real coffee. And then I whipped cream with a little brandy (to go with the homemade vanilla extract made with brandy). The cream didn't really whip up--maybe it had been open too long. But it still tasted awe

I suppose I'm technically being lazy since I haven't been posting much of my own writing, thoughts or pictures over the last couple entries. Technical life has gotten a bit more tricky since my computer has been out of commission over the last few weeks. But the quotes I've been putting up from my pastors and teachers have also expressed thoughts that I found wonderful and freeing and wanted to share. I have been writing short pieces for my teachers, but generally they need recontextualization to make them appropriate for a broader audience. So here's another from Dr. Leithart: Carey Ellen Walsh ( Exquisite Desire ) points to the difference between classical responses to desire and the account of desire in the Song of Songs. Using Odysseus and the Sirens as an illustration, she notes how this scene reveals the Greek instinct that desire “harbors danger by rendering its victim under its spell.” To counter desire, one needed to exercise rational management and

To enjoy life rquires some husbandry. I enjoy it twice as much as others, since the measure of our joy depends on the greater or lesser degree of our attatchment to it. Above all now, when I see my span so short, I want to give it more ballast; I want to arrest the swiftness of its passing by the swiftness of my capture, compensating for the speed with which it drains away by the intensity of my enjoyment. The shorter my lease of it, the deeper and fuller I must make it. Montaigne, "On Experience."

From today's eucharistic meditation: Many unbelievers have dismissed this Table before us as a great superstition. Two thousand years after Jesus lived and died, here we are gathering to eat His flesh and drink His blood. What kind of sense does that make? The first thing to note about this charge is the truth of Chesterton’s observation—a man who refuses to believe in something does not believe in nothing, but rather he eventually come to believe in anything. The cavalier dismissal of this Table as the center of the world has not banished superstitions; rather, it has opened the door wide open to them. Unbelievers instinctively know that we are saved by what we eat. That is quite true. But we have to eat the body of Christ, drinking His blood, and we have to do this by true faith in the Word that is declared over it. If you refuse to partake of this, then there may be a brief period of food atheism, or perhaps food agnosticism. But when that brief period is over, the superstitions

says a writing teacher to his students. Let's see. Two weddings. Two funerals (and another one coming this week). My brother getting ready to leave home; for us, a complicated process. Many friends moving away. Difficulty finding a job (along with plenty of my peers). Biblical Horizons conference. A ridiculous number of engagements. A family reunion. Grandfather with cancer. His wife with a brain hemorrhage . A wrongful arrest. A suicide. Real life is not wished, it is lived; stories and novels, whose subject is human beings in relationship with experience to undergo, make their own difficult way, struggle toward their own relationships. Instead of fairy immunity to change, there is the vulnerability of human imperfection caught up in human emotion, and so there is growth, there is crisis, there is fulfillment, there is decay. Life moves toward death. The novel's progress is one of causality, and with that comes suspense. Suspense is a necessity in a novel because it is a mai

Well, here's some of my culinary output in the last two months or so. Baked ricotta, with lemon and black pepper. Good on bread. French lentils: beautiful itty bitty ones, mottled grey and green and even a little blue. Not the average drab dust-colored ones. I cooked them with caramalized red onions and lots of red wine, and I think cumin. They turned out marvelous, simultaneously sweet and savory. So good! Fried egg in a corn tortilla, simmered black beans from the NY Times recipe (now one of my favorite recipes---you must never never never buy canned beans again!), avocado, and paprika sprinkled over top. I love paprika; it's now one of my favorite spices, up there with ginger and cumin and white pepper. Homemade pizza with all the works. My dad especially liked this one. I think it was the little bit of sugar in the Penzey's pizza seasoning. (Usually I add the salt before I remember the pizza seasoning; and since the pizza seasoning already has salt in it, I forego it

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work , Matthew B. Crawford. From his essay for the New York Times, May 21: A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this. Nor can big business or big government — those idols of the right and the left — reliably secure such work for us. Everyone is rightly concerned about economic growth on the one hand or unemployment and wages on the other, but the character of work doesn’t figure much in political debate. Labor unions address important concerns like workplace safety and family leave, and management looks for greater efficiency, but on the nature of the job itself, the dominant political and economic paradigms are mute. Yet work forms us, and deforms us, with broad public consequences.

From ND Wilson's blog: As is the case with most things that I say, this is stolen. But this isn’t stolen from another writer, this is stolen (and adapted) from a music video/film guy friend. If you want to be a writer (professionally and not just as a hobbyist), here’s a litmus test for your dedication. Can you get up early and write a short creative sketch of the sunrise (oh, say, 250 wds)? Then can you do it again tomorrow? And the next day? Can you write 30 descriptive sketches of 30 consecutive sunrises? The simple exercise in discipline is hard enough, and it will tell you just how much you actually want to write. But on top of that, the writing component is quite difficult as well. How do you see the sunrise in a new way every morning? How do you express it in a new way? Can you get through the verbal cliche-flailing, and actually create 30 distinct scenes? Adapt the exercise if you want. Stand in the same place every night and try to sketch 30 consecutive midnights. I have o

A gem of wisdom from my Greek professor: In giving an answer, "if you don't know what the question is, you're just blogging."

Look you Floridians: see that sky? There's nothing in the way. It's like the roof got lifted. No haze of humidity pressing down on you; you just stare up into the sky and it makes you giddy. I still think of this cute spot as my little house, even though I only live in the upstairs apartment. And see the lawn? It's actually green. Rob (downstairs) plowed amd seeded it with the help of his brother-in-law; last year it was a mess of dirt, rocks, and weeds. Yellow crocus. Purple crocus. They are actually a deeper purple than this, but my camera isn't able to capture their intensity. I wish I could take pictures like Georgia O'Keefe painte , but my camera doesn't like getting too intimate with its subjects. Last bits of snow. They're just too fabulous; I can't ignore them. Cooking adventures: tomato soup with lots of spices. Those are soy nuts and cilantro on top. I've been putting soy nuts on everything; they have a lovely toasty-golden flavo

This is a poem my professor read the other day; we're studying Thomas Aquinas and he thought that the poem rather echoed some of Aquinas' metaphysics. (Mr. McIntosh stated that he thought that good metaphysics and good poetry are essential to one another . . . could I say essential to one another's existence?) Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman God goes, belonging to every riven thing He’s made Sing his being simply by being The thing it is: Stone and tree and sky, Man who sees and sings and wonders why God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing He’s made, Means a storm of peace.Think of the atoms inside the stone. Think of the man who sits alone Trying to will himself into the stillness where God goes belonging. To every riven thing He’s made There is given one shade Shaped exactly to the thing itself: Under the tree a darker tree; Under the man the only man to see God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made The things that bring Him near, Made the mind that makes

First, in the crafting department: some valentines. The heart folds into an envelope. And then the mask I made for the school's masquerade ball: For my culinary escapades: Roast turkey. There are no vegetables left in the bottom because I ate them. Onions roasted with turkey, oh . . . . From that turkey came this soup. Egg baked in a corn tortilla. It looks rather like a cabbage (which is after all, a flower). Isn't it pretty? Cranberries cooked with merlot, sugar, and pinch of salt. Soooooo good! Between a chutney and a jam, and good on everything. The cranberries had enough pectin of their own: the texture turned out much better than I thought it would. On oatmeal. On toasted tortillas. I also thinly sliced a sweet potato and baked the slices. The cranberries were an agreeable condiment. My beautiful asparagus! With rice pelof. I also made a red wine sauce which you can't see. It turned out a little too thin (it was actually intended to go over fish) and the rice abso

From an interview with Barbara Nicolosi in Salvo magazine: A story "haunts you because of its paradoxes. How do you haunt an audience? How do you create paradox? What is the nature of paradox? These are the stories that Christian storytellers should be asking themselves. Unfortunately, most Christian filmmakers are just trying to figure out what will sell; they're trying to find the next Facing the Giants . But Facing the Giants is supremely unparadoxical. It's just porn for Christians. It's easy; it makes you feel really good; and it's a fantasy lie. What is that except porn? This made me think of another movie popular with Christians, Chariots of Fire . But Chariots of Fire is not just a feel-good movie about someone who "stood up for what he believed in." The story of Harold Abrahams is almost totally ignored. What gets overlooked is that Abrahams and Eric Liddel are in the same struggle. Abrahams, as a Jew albeit nominally so, did not have any probl

On the way to Spokane back in December. Looks like the moon, doesn't it? But it's only Washington. From the plane. On the way back north, we flew over the Rockies and the Cascades. All beautiful. In the Seattle airport. It was Russian-looking in style, I thought. It was thrilling to step into the airport and see this after coming off the cold runway (there wasn't actually a gate open, so we had to walk across the cold tarmac). We have sunshine today! Right now it's -4 degrees outside--up from -8 just an hour earlier. The snow is so beautiful.

From a discussion on the New York Times website as the value of a BA To the Editor: Charles Murray needs to recognize that the liberal arts degree, at its best, validates its holder as one who has skills needed for some of our biggest jobs. A good half of the liberal arts curriculum is about thinking analogically. The degree says this person has studied “humane letters” and so knows his or her way around a metaphor: how it opens up vistas, alters viewpoints, both frees and constrains thought and affects decisions. No one should try to motivate a work force, lead a corporation, plan military strategies or run a government who does not know how a metaphor works. Math and science, the other half of the liberal arts curriculum, develop skills that are scarce, yet needed, in our society. They are all about knowing a fact from a factoid, reasoning from data to underlying patterns and practical implications, all while feeding careful observation through the strainer of valid logic. The libera

Adrienne Sandvos says in a piece for Radiant magazine (based in Orlando, for Christian twenty-something females). We tend to fall back on song when we want to worship. It’s easier, I suppose, than employing other art forms which require a whole lot more materials than a voice and the memory of the song you want to sing. But relying on those songs is like ordering the exact same dish every time you go out to eat. There’s a whole world of food out there, and you keep settling for spaghetti. In the same way, seeking variety in our worship allows us to connect to God in a totally different way. What she doesn't point out is that we draw our worship practices from observing worship in the Bible, specifically formal worship. (David's dance at the return of the ark was not formal worship.) We aren't "falling back" on music, we are following the pattern laid out for us. Generally the church has taken the second commandment as a warning against the visual arts in the san