Iconic

Saint Tolkien

Ice Cream & Glass

Some brief thoughts on being a father today, specifically being a father of girls.

Obviously, I can't communicate what it means to be a father of boys because I have none. I do imagine what it would be like. And, in my imagination, it is not what it is like to have girls.

Sure, I've been teaching Mildred what zombies are, and which weapons one would use to slay them, but I don't expect her to actually have to slay many zombies, except when the males in her life (the ones that should be claiming their responsiblities as zombie slayers) have failed or have honorably perished.

I want all of my girls to be Jaels, capable of driving a tent peg into a Sisera when the need arises. But I don't see that as their primary call. Jael, I'm sure, did not then begin a career as a warrior. She cooked supper the next evening.

Indie Kids Rejoice!

"Here is the very short version: The unseen world, the real world, the kingdom of God, the alternative world all around us and in us....is bleeding through all over us......"

"If you can't see the kingdom of God bleeding through then maybe you are looking in the wrong places. You won't find them writing about it in the newspapers. However, if your eyes are open, you can see it in magazines, movies, songs, friendships and loveships. The world will not end with a great noise and fire. It will end as it has been ending: the undoing of one stupid idea at a time."

The above is a snippet from a Lenny Smith blog post (if you want to read the whole thing, scroll down to the post titled "Tell it like it is!"), one of the most enjoyable, [very] short presentations of an optimistic eschatology that I have read in a long time. It is all the more pleasing because the words are coming from a man that has used his life to build beautiful Christian cultural artifacts (songs), and, in addition, to pass on this culture-crafting to his seed.

Lenny Smith is the father of the Danielson Famile, childhood acquaintances (or so I'm told) of Sarah Johnson (nee Evans), progeny of the Donut Man.

"Life without Jesus is like a donut, cause there's a hole in the middle of your heart."

All Things New.

Merry Christmas.

My gift to everyone:
Mary Bursting by Douglas Jones

Travel

We're off to Long Island.

Like father, like first-born daughter

"Potatoes make me happy, mom!"

-Mildred Elise Owen.

Lon Chaney Walking With the Queen.

I thought that this was pretty cool.

It's funny- I don't like most Adam Sandler movies, or even a lot of the stuff that he did for SNL, but I do really like Adam Sandler for whatever reason I can't explain. I don't know why I'm linking to this, I just enjoyed it, is all.

Fruitless Blog

So, about 4 days ago, I get an email from my wife, an email from my wife!
What is she trying to tell me that she can't tell me to my face? Well, here it is...

The text of her email:
-
aha!!!!!!!
(although you don't use it on your lap...)

http://www.healthtalk.ca/laptop_infertility_12112004_6626.php
-

And so, my wife gives me the ever so subtle message that I should give the blog a little rest if I want more children.

Nothing New

It's been nice not having to go to school. My big news is that I went to a Library people party where Jason Poole was shamelessly hitting on a library professor all night, even walked her home, and I had to go and pull him away from her apartment. Whatever advances she let him have, I blame on the alcohol involved. I also got a $9.99 unlimited monthy rental membership to Hollywood Video, just for the next month while I have no classes. It's already paid for itself with the first three videos that I rented, that taken alone would have been over $12. The best news, though, is that I bought almost the complete works of Stephen King, each individual book at $1 (or $1.50 at the most) a piece. Beautiful.
Anyhow, since I haven't posted for a while, and since I probably won't post at all for at least another week, here's my final paper that I wrote for my non-book materials class. I half believe what I wrote. I really do think that it's a good paper if I re-work it a bit. I got a perfect grade on it and kind words from my prof, but I'm not so sure how I feel about it.

Here it is:
Final Paper

Right now, as I type, I'm listening to a Joe Wise album that I converted to CD from LP, thanks to SoundForge, given to me by Tim Rizzo. Thanks, Tim!

May peace prevail on earth

The National Beard Registry

Link courtesy of Matthew Newman, who should be posting this on his own blog.

The King says:

"I don't see myself as God's stenographer. As someone who believes in God, believes that God is a logical out growth of the fact that life fits together as well as it does, but that doesn't mean that we know God's mind... There's been a lot of criticism of the book where they say the God stuff really turns them off. I'm thinking to myself that these guys have no problems with vampires, demons, golems, werewolves and you name it. If you try to bring in a God who can take sardines and crackers and turn it into loaves and fishes, then these people have a problem. I say to myself, if you have a real problem then I'm doing what a novel of suspense and horror is supposed to do, which is to just scratch below the surface and sought of rub your nerves the wrong way."

-Stephen King

I recently read Thinner, and I've become absolutely convinced that the horror genre is (or can be) an overwhelmingly powerful Christian genre. Thinner ends about as horribly as it possibly could, no redemption at all, everyone plagued by the sickness that the protagonist could have taken on himself. Our protagonist becomes a sort of Anti-Christ figure, powerfully displaying the end of sin's consequences.

Deluge of Digital Delight

Abigail updated her blog a few days ago. If you haven't been there, you should go immediately to see how incredibly cute our daughters are.

Stolen because it deserved to be.

"Five minute – 10:36 AM
Who am I? I ask it again, like I have thousands upon thousands of times since I first realized that I wasn’t what I thought I was. Ballie and my great preoccupation. Perhaps the preoccupation of others. When it turns out that you’re not Superchristling, that you never were, never could be, never were supposed to be, but that’s what you’re mind is full of, that’s what it sees itself as. Let’s say you were a boxer, trained by a father that was a boxer that never quite achieved the potential that he thought he had. You’ve been trained to be nothing but a boxer, all you know is gyms and sweat and punches and footwork and pain and endurance. That is everything, that is your all, and you’ve never imagined yourself as being anything else. But then, one day, you leave your father’s gym and step out into the world and are forced to reconcile with the fact that you’re not a great boxer, you were never meant to be, and, to be quite frank, the world has no place for a would-be-great-boxer. You’re left standing there, wondering, then what the fuck am I? Am I fish or fowl? Bread or milk? And every place that you come to, every character you step into, you have to say, “no. I’m not one of you,” after a while, you realize that no matter what role you step into, it’s never going to quite fit. You are a great boxer. Your mind is carved so that the strings of thought flow though it towards one destination – great boxer. I am not a great boxer. I am little else. What am I?"

-Spike

More Appropriate Icons - Sacred Objects

Jesus of the Week

Link Heavy

Every so often I'll listen to NPR's Talk of the Nation, and, even rarer, I'll listen to Talk of the Nation: Science Friday. I'm not even remotely a scientist, but I do enjoy the program.

The friday after Thanksgiving, a few weeks ago, ToTN: Science Friday aired the Ig Nobel awards. I'd heard the awards in previous years, and I was very grateful that I randomly caught this episode (it was while I was down in Binghamton, driving to one of my favorite used bookstores, Paperbacks Plus).

Check out the Ig Nobels.

Icons for the 21st Century

Last night, I had to meet some classmates for a group project. We met at Caffe Aroma, which is located in the same building as the Elmwood Talking Leaves bookstore.

Anyhow, I showed up a little too early, and decided to look at books for the time I had. And I made a wonderful discovery in the Humor section:

The Brick Testament

It is, quite simply, impressive.

More Than Human in the New Adam, Heathens Tremble

The ichthyans or Queer Fish are the oddest species to be found in any of the worlds. They are pseudo-human, perhaps, but not android. The sign of the fish is not easily seen on them, and they pass as human whenever they wish: a peculiarity of them is that they often do not wish to pass as human even when their lives depend on it. They have blood in their veins, but an additional serum as well. It is only when the organizational sickness is upon them (for these organizing and building proclivities they are sometimes known as the Queer Builders or the Ants of God), that they can really be told from humans. . . . Their threat to us is more real than apparent and we tend to minimize it. This we must not do. In our unstructured, destructed, destroyed society, they must be counted as the enemies to be exterminated. It's a double danger they offer to us: to fight them on their own grounds, or to neglect to fight them. They'd almost trick us into organizing to hunt down their organization.

-Raphael Aloysius Lafferty

Strong Stuff

"To read science fiction is to read Simak. The reader who does not like Simak stories does not like science fiction at all."

– Robert A. Heinlein

I con da no

"The great sin of Jeroboam I, "who caused Israel to sin" as Kings often puts it, was liturgical idolatry, violation of the second commandment. Jeroboam I set up two calves and called on the people to worship Yahweh through them (I Kings 12:25-32). He called on the people to "behold" these calves."
"Jeroboam was not calling the people to worship a new god, but to worship Yahweh through the medium of calves. He expressly referred to the calf Aaron set up in the wilderness (I Kings 12:28)..."
"Aaron's calf was not another god either, but an icon through which the people were to worship the Lord. Worship at these calves was called a "feast of Yahweh" (Exodus 32:5)...."

-James Jordan, from The Liturgy Trap

Last Friday night while down in Binghamton I got into a discussion with Peter about icons, at Scott's house.

So what do I do two days later, on Sunday night, but go to a Taize prayer service with icons prominently displayed up front, and I'm encouraged to worship through them.

Go figure.

The songs were pretty, but I won't be going back.

Oral History

I'm very proud of my latest project for my non-book media class. Please, even if you didn't look at any of the other links for the class that I posted, take a look at this one. It's definitely worth it.
http://ohadvantages.blogspot.com/