There's Beauty in the Bellow

Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina with one of the falsest first lines of literature; he writes that "happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." With novels and memoirs full of dysfunctional families of perverse individuals, perhaps we are congratulating ourselves in our unhappiness that at least we are not like those boring happy folks. But perversion, being parasitical, is capable of only so many permutations. Every happy family has found its own way of creating an organic being from a few vagrant individuals. "Dysfunctional family" must be a cliche by now. The "Books" section of The New York Times is probably the most boring part of the paper after "U.S. News." But I love invites to family dinners, to watch the members speak to, and listen to them speak of, one another, to see their different methods of life. Last night, I listened to a wife talk about her husband's annual spring itch to drive to Washing...

I came across this hymn: God be in my head and in my understanding; God be in my eyes, and in my looking; God be in my mouth, and in my speaking; God be in my heart, and in my thinking; God be at my end, and at my departing. Setting by Sir Henry Walford-Davies

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...