There's Beauty in the Bellow

Excerpts from "Forced Merriment and the True Meaning of Christmas," an essay by Christopher Hitchens printed posthumously in the December 24 edition of the Wall Street Journal . First of all, Mr. Hitchens takes a swipe at the Protestant Church: The original Puritan Protestants regarded Christmas as blasphemous. Yet this is hardly subversive at all. Religious sermons against the "commercialization" of Christmas have also been a staple of the season ever since I can remember. A root-and-branch resistance to the holiday spirit would have to be a lot tougher than that. It's fairly easy to be a charter member of the Tom Lehrer Club, which probably embraces a fair number of the intellectual classes and has sympathizers even in the most surprising families. But the thing about the annual culture war that would probably most surprise those who want to "keep the Christ in Christmas" is this: The original Puritan Protestant

and no telling the little pieces you'll pick up. The Wall St Journal discusses Vera Wang . . . and we find out that Michelle Obama wore Vera Wang last week. Remember how Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich got in trouble for their spending? "Beyond Bridal: Vera Wang's New Look," Christina Binkley. December 15, 2011, Wall Street Journal. And who are John Huntsman's daughters hanging out with? One evening early this year, a red Ferrari pulled up at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Beijing, and the son of one of China's top leaders stepped out, dressed in a tuxedo. Bo Guagua, 23, was expected. He had a dinner appointment with a daughter of the then-ambassador, Jon Huntsman. The car, though, was a surprise. The driver's father, Bo Xilai, was in the midst of a controversial campaign to revive the spirit of Mao Zedong through mass renditions of old revolutionary anthems, known as "red singing." He had ordered students and officials to work stin

Lewis' quote out of Till We Have Faces has been echoing in my head all morning since learning of the death of Christopher Hitchens. I followed the debates between Doug Wilson and Hitchens, watched "Collision," and was once privileged to hear Peter Hitchens live. Hitchens' last piece for Vanity Fair Read Hitchens' reflections on his cancer--they are harrowing, horrifying and heroic. He was intellectually honest--to the point of self-immolation. Just the headshot of Christopher's chemo-swollen face, bald head, the skin aged 10 years in only one year, makes one grieve for the strong voice in the quickly slackening body. He knew Who he was fighting--the Mighty God, the Judge of all the earth Who does rightly, the Ancient of Days, the I Am, the Creator and Maker and Sustainer. He denied all those titles, but he did not belittle them. Pastor Wilson's obit for Christianity Today "[Hitchens] He was fully aware of the authority an enfant terrib

H Debussy my nutty cat Is there a simpler recipe for a photo?

Travis Cooper's book Hipster Christianity has a website: http://www.hipsterchristianity.com/index.php . The website also features a free chapter (actually intro & first chapter) in pdf. I appreciated Cooper's handling of the nuances of this relationship between two cultures and loved the questions he raised. I will pursue this book for future reading. Good questions to think about.

by Steve Watters When I was a kid, I had an electric racetrack. I’d line up my racecars in the little track grooves and zoom them around the track over and over again. After a while, I got bored with just circling the track. I took the track apart and built ramps. At the bottom of the ramp, I would hold a car in place, letting the engine rev a little and watching the tires spin before releasing it and watching it fly over the ramp. Sometimes the car would land safely, but often it would fly off and hit my bed or dresser and get banged up. What ultimately totaled my racecars, however, was the way I was holding them in place while the engine was running. I didn’t realize that was stripping the gears. The car wasn’t meant to be held in place while its engine ran. It was supposed to go somewhere. I thought about that old racetrack recently in the context of romantic love — a powerful force driven by the twin engines of a desire for companionship and the sex drive. This f

Winter: When Our Internal Fires Cry For Tending: "color: rgb(51, 102, 255)" Just a line I wrote once that I like. The "y" in "cry" echoes the "i" in "fires." The "e" in "tending" echoes the "e" and a little bit of the "i" in "internal." "color: rgb(102, 0, 204); font-family:georgia;" I wish I could get the text to go from right to left.

History is the people's discipline—the only academic subject that demands no special professional training. Some of my favorite history books are by lawyers, journalists, scientists and nuns. To write well about history you do not need a Ph.D., just a few rare but accessible qualities: insatiable curiosity, critical intellect, disciplined imagination, indefatigability in the pursuit of truth and a slightly weird vocation for trying to get to know dead people by studying the sources they have left us. . . . . . . . . . I suspect, however, that the very virtues of my discipline are responsible for the vices of the writers who abuse it. Because history is the people's discipline, books about it are relatively salable—invitingly so, to indolent cupidity. History's accessibility to non-specialists makes it seem dangerously, delusively easy. From " Faulty Navigators ," a review and entertaining rant on four (inadequate) books on Columbus by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

The eye, O priests, is on fire; impressions received by the eye are on fire; and whatever sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent, originates in dependence on impressions received by the eye, that also is on fire. ~Buddha Well, first off. This speech by the Buddha has great rhythm. The rhythm sets me on fire. Which he would disapprove of. Secondly, I like the picture that it creates: a world scorching with beauty, music, flavors and colors. Mr. Buddha implies that all this profligate glory is a very bad thing. He forbids getting fired up about anything Think of all the other pictures associated with fire: a face burning with any number of emotions: anger, joy, passion, love; burning eyes, blazing eyes. "Fiery" is often a complementary adjective . . . . except when applied to "pit," of course. Dorothy Sayers said: "If I had found a man to my measure, I would have set a torch to the world." Not to be confused with watching the world burn. You ca

Currently reading: Economics in One Lesson , Henry Hazlitt. Assigned by my boss. Very cool. Obama is an economic dunce measured against Hazlitt's principles. The Book of Common Prayer . Why don't we pray prayers like these anymore? The BoCP is full of prayers for victory, for aid in "running after" God's promises. It seems that we pray only for our own advancement and blessings; we are continually praying for health (we have so many people ill and in distress!). But I'm also reading the book of Job. Why don't we pray for outcomes like Job's? The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy , Bryan McGee. About a pompous bore by a pompous bore. Majesty: Elizabeth II and the House of Windsor , Robert Lacey. Fun read. God was very gracious to England in bringing George VI and the present Queen to the throne. England might not exist at all if Edward VIII had continued his reign into World War II. In other news, I have a diploma now. And the GRE is a week from this

Well, I ate roasted brussels sprouts with toasted walnuts and a dollop of plain yogurt. What did you eat? Crackly, salty, creamy, crunchy, warm, cool, and plenty of umami. Hey, they needed to be eaten and this morning was my window to cook them. I was going to save them for lunch, but after sampling one, they couldn't wait. If you can find brussels sprouts still on the stalk, grab 'em. They stay fresh much longer than the ones already cut off. Plus the stalk makes a fun little totem. I used Ina Garten's recipe for roasted brussels sprouts--so simple: just evoo, salt, pepper, the cute mini cabbages (the larger ones cut in half) all roasted at 400. They converted several people at the last church supper to brussels sprouts.