Stone Life

C'mon Over

2009-01-04T13:35:00.001-08:00

My very cool brother set up a new site for me and Julie, so I will begin posting there.

Check it out: thestonelife.com

Berlin Quick-Hits

2009-01-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

I have started to post a few times, but it kills me to not give my full attention to something that I write (which I have not the inclination to do right now), so I thought I would just toss out a few tidbits in short chunks instead of following a narrative of some sort.

*Things I have never seen/done till now:

1. Watched someone smoke crack - that's right; tonight as we were riding the U-Bahn back to our neighborhood, a young man stepped on at one of the stops and quickly proceeded to the nearest corner (aka: where we were sitting). In full view of us and the other dozen or so in the car, he nonchalantly unrolled a piece of tin foil with what appeared to be some sort of crack-like substance, heated it with a lighter, and smoked until the next stop where he exited as quickly as he entered.

2. Been shot at - NYE was a chaotic madhouse in Berlin. There are apparantly no fireworks laws, and so everyone, and I mean EVERYONE is carrying around backpacks full of explosives. We are not talking about blackcats or sparklers; rather, these are industrial grade small-explosives, probably bigger than the shows that they used to put on in Crane. We walked around the city for five or six hours that night, and so we got pretty deft at dodging stray bombs and when to duck away from flashes that were seen out of the corners of our eyes, but nothing prepared us for when we passed under the second/third story window in a residential neighborhood and a guy leaned out the window with a pistol and started firing. Granted, he was not really shooting AT us, but it was bloody frightening having a gun pointed right above you and firing four or five times.

3. Walked on water - as if my ego needed a bigger boost, as I went for a run this morning (side note: Berlin is a great runner's city. There are trails along the rivers all through the city) I took a short cut through a large wooded park area and came across a pond that appeared to be frozen over. I have always wanted to walk out onto a frozen pond like they do in the movies, so I inched my way out towards the middle and then quickly made my way back to land. It was pretty cool.

4. Been to a German movie theatre - I realize this is not terribly excited for most of you, but I wanted to include this nugget. Germany's big Christmas release this year was "Buddenbrooks." I know, I know! I was excited too! As we all know, this was Thomas Mann's first novel when he was in his twenties, and it became a HUGE German success in the 1930's (give or take a few years...I can't remember). This is a big-budget film adaptation of the novel, and I went to see it last night. (side-note2: interestingly enough, they sell tickets at different prices in German theatres, and if you want to sit towards the middle or back of the theatre, you pay a little more. They assign specific seats just like a sporting event.) The film was entirely in German, so I did not catch 100% of it, but encouragingly enough, I was able to follow along pretty well, and it was great. If you have a chance to see it in sub-titles, please do, but, more importantly, if you have never read the novel, you should. It is fairly light-hearted and easy to read for a novelist that is oftentimes difficult.

5. Doener Kebaps are like manna from heaven - This Turkish immigrant to Germany may rival beer as the best thing here. I LOVE THEM, and I would eat them three times a day if I could. Yum, Yum, Yum.

6. German pastries are simply better than U.S. pastries. We do not understand it, but neither Julie nor I ever eat the pastries back home, but over here we cannot get enough. They are so, so good, and we think Abbey should come over here, learn from the masters, and open a Euro-bakery back in the States. (this picture was supposed to have the pastries we were eating this morning, but you will just have to pretend.)

7. Kirschen Bier (cherry beer)...not bad!! - for our anniversary yesterday we broke with the daily tradiation of finding the cheapest, smallest place in Berlin and eating for under ten Euros; instead, opting for a large brewery/restaurant in the heart of what appears to be something of a Times Square Berlin. I started with the house brew, which was good, but Julie had an apple beer that she liked so much that I decided to drink a cherry beer. With the exception of drinking a beer that was basically pink, I really like it.

8. Berlin bars are not smoky (sorry Chad) - apparantly the neo-nazis that run the Dallas City Council have made their way back over to the motherland, and public smoking has been outlawed in Berlin. I still have high hopes for Koeln and Munchen, but it seems doubtful.

Have a good workday tomorrow....and maybe I will let Julie write some later.

Herzlichen Glueckwunsch zum Hochzeitstag!

2009-01-03T02:27:00.000-08:00

Or: Happy Anniversary.

Yes, as of today Julie and I have been married for five years.

We are considering sticking it out for at least one more.

2009-01-02T14:15:00.001-08:00

We spent last night wandering through the Charlottenberg section of West Berlin, shopping at the Weinachten Markts (Christmas Markets), and eating/drinking along the way. We discovered something new: Gluewein (hot wine), which is just like it sounds, and OUTSTANDING, and I won Julie over to a snack that I learned to love in Muenchen: Laeberkaesse (Liver-Cheese). The latter is a thick, hot meat that is served on a roll with spicy mustard.

We made our way to another hole-in-the-wall, which touted itself as the "House of 100 Beers"...or something to that effect. We stayed and warmed ourselves with some good cheeses and breads and beers.

Today we walked more than 15 miles around Berlin, so I'll toss in some pics.

The memorial to the murdered Jews

On the banks between the Reichstag of West and East Berlin (Julie chose the West)

Monument to the 17th of June (worker's revolt in Berlin)

Not a great picture as far as scenery, but this is taken from East Berlin, so imagine something oppressive and profound

Deutsches NYE (or...Sylvester)

2009-01-01T07:34:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I will have to give Julie credit, because for over a month she has said we are going to Berlin to celebrate "Sylvester," but I did not believe her. Turn's out she was dead-on, and everywhere we went last night there were "Merry Sylvester" signs.....s0, I stand corrected.

After settling yesterday evening, we decided against taking a nap, even though we needed one desperately. Instead, we thought we would grab some dinner and wander about all evening until closer to midnight, when we planned to head to the Brandenburg Tor, the largest Sylvester celebration in Europe. Julie was forced to endure another Michaelish euro-travel experience - I do not like to eat places that are on-the-beaten-path, so to speak; instead, I would rather wander around for an hour or two until I can find somewhere sufficiently obscure and non-touristy.

We hit the jackpot with our search. Julie was losing patience with me, and we were both getting pretty cold and hungry after walking over half the city, but then we came across a tiny hole-in-the-wall where no one even spoke english. They had an all-you-can-eat buffet of German foods, and the place was filled with families from the neighborhood who all knew the owners. We stayed there for hours, and we ate and drank so much that we were ready for bed by about 9.

Julie, true to her word, drank her very first full-beer (a half-litre Franziskaner, if you care) during our meal.....and I had an array in the time she took to finish the one. I was very, very impressed.

We left Goethestrasse and the cozy comfort of our little pub for the freezing, dangerous (literally, there were people firing guns and fireworks EVERYWHERE...more on this later) streets of Berlin for the remainder of the evening. Within minutes, the notion of sleepiness was blown away by the biting wind and miles of walking that we were in store for.

To put it simply, we got ourselves quite lost, and were it not for a Libyan student that we ran into near the U-Bahn, we probably would have never found the Tor. We stood in the freezing cold amidst hundreds of thousands, drinking from our bottle of champagne, fireworks being lit all around, and counted down with the Germans to the huge fireworks display that ended our portion of the evening.

Here we are, probably lost

Approaching the Tor (in the background)
As the clock struck midnight

insanity ensued

we are pretty sure we saw this same picture on CNN today

It took us hour(s) to get home, mainly because we did not look at a map, and we stopped at the street vendors for snacks, but finally, who knows what time, we ended up back in the warm comfort of our hotel.

I am sure there is more to tell, especially about the fireworks portion of the evening, but I thought some of you would like to see a few pictures. We are off again, so until next time....Tschuss!

Wir Sind Hier!!

2008-12-31T08:44:00.001-08:00

Here we are at DFW (right).....showered, fresh, ready to go. This was all before the flight to London.

I think the second picture (below) is showing a bit of fatigue. Ten or more hours of sleeping upright...etc, but our layover in London was short, and we soon boarded our flight for Berlin.

Julie was exposed to the Michael Stone way of traveling when we got off the plane, and I refused to use her printed-out directions. We found a bus, went across town, and wandered the street until we found our great, old Hotel Berlin, Berlin. More pictures to come.

Just When I Was Losing Faith in My Country....

2008-10-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

I bet you thought that this was going to be another political rant by that title, but, alas there are other things worth reporting....except, do you think someone today told McCain that there is a difference between autism and down's....I'm just saying.

Stop me when you've heard this one.

You go to the repair-center because your car is in need of some sort of fixin' that you can neither understand nor possibly do on your own. - Check!

They offer you a low-ball quote: "I wouldn't worry about. We'll check it out, but it's probably only the battery." - Check!

A day or so later you get a phone call: "Uhm...Mr. Stone.... We were a little off. Turns out that it was a more serious problem than we first diagnosed." The long and the short of it is that if you want your car not to explode upon being driven from the shop, you need to sink a few rent-checks worth of money into their pockets. Sorta like being held up at gunpoint...so you agree. - Check!

You go to pick up the car, and, shockingly, the actual price is higher than the estimate. - Check, check, check, check, check!!!!!

You catch them on a technicality and cut the price in half. - Che.... What!?!

That's right. If only for today, I win. Turns out that the young guy (who may or may not have a job as of this evening) that they let run the place on the weekends isn't quite as competent as he thinks he is (Let me just say this; I realize I may be the most arrogant s.o.b. on the planet, but put up against this guy I would be a candidate for sainthood for my works of humility). He missplacd a decimal place in the estimate, and so instead of charging me for 1,100.00 part and service combo, he told me it was 110.00. OOPS!!

Turns out that they are decent people at the Mini dealership and took it like men. They swallowed hard and basically cut my total payment in half when it was all said and done. I tried not to giggle to hard as I left.

Today's Tally:

Automobile Racket: 0

Me: 1

All Work and No Play...

2008-09-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

I am sitting at my desk, a cool red-number from Ikea that is shaped like a peanut, which must mean that I am studying, but I am going to take a brief sojourn away from Thomas Mann and Robert Frost (maybe a little more Heidegger later for desert) and throw out some observations about the debate last night.

- Did anyone notice that John McCain was incapable of looking at Barack Obama when he was speaking about him? It was obvious in the first minutes of the debate that the moderator was interested in the two addressing each other personally, and Obama took to this like a fish to water, but McCain would not make eye-contact. I found this, if nothing else, really strange. I realize that he is not nervous - he has been doing it too long - but he certainly appeared uncomfortable, whereas Obama seemed right at home.

- Funny line of the night (it even made Obama audibly giggle): "Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record in the Senate....it's hard to reach across the aisle when you're that far to the Left." Very clever.

- A quick question of protocol: Is it okay to refer to yourself as a Maverick? That seems like the kind of thing that is acceptable to be dubbed as by another person, but to continually reference yourself by a nickname seems...well...wrong. It is like the football player who refers to himself as "Moose" rather than his real name. It comes across as laughable.

- Two moderator comments: 1. Did he not seem a little outmatched in this setting? He was too timid and lacked a credibility as one who should be in charge of the debate at times. It was especially off-putting in the beginning when he was all but begging the two candidates to attack each other personally a-la Jerry Springer. 2. (and I am sure that the FoxNews talking-heads have picked up on this already) He sure seemed to differ to Obama a lot. He was fair with the direct aiming of questions to both candidates equally, but he instinctively shot his glance towards Obama when the rapid-fire responses would ensue. More than once he even cut-off McCain when he deemed it necessary to go on to another question, but he almost always allowed Obama to get his last word in.

- I was very nervous for McCain throughout the evening, because as the 90-minutes wore on there had been no direct exploitation of his P.O.W. experience. The moderator even gave him the perfect lead-in when he asked about Vietnam, but, for maybe the first time ever, McCain did not hijack the opportunity insert his prisoner experience. Thank God that he was able to shoehorn it into the conversation almost as the proverbial buzzer sounded....whew, disaster averted.

- Do you think that Obama will ever take the flag from his lapel again? If he is elected, will there ever be a time that we don't see it? Do you think there is a person on his staff whose sole job is to ensure its proper placement? How many of them do you think he owns?

- I'm tired of the bracelet-thing. Enough out of both of you!

- Too many failed one-liners out of McCain. I will give him credit that they tapered off as the night progressed, but particularly in the beginning, he kept attempting these pithy soundbites that failed miserably.

That's enough for now. Back to the books.

I Agree

2008-09-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

I am not one who generally gives a rip about celebrities spouting opinions about anything, and I would not care about this except that it is a televised interview with a non-politician that brings up what I believe to be a valid argument that I have not been hearing enough of.....but I am not sure what the deal is with the dinosaur stuff at the end...just ignore that.

Happy Birthday, Old Man

2008-09-10T09:01:00.000-07:00

Wow, you've now blown past the big 3-0, and are beginning your steady ascent towards death. Cheers!

Beautiful Irony

2008-09-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

When we moved into the city (I count Uptown as the suburbs) I counted on a quickened pace, stress and bustle, maybe even a little apprehension or something of the like. All in all, I imagined a change, and I was correct in my assessment....sort of. Surprisingly, the change that I personally have experienced his been the exact opposite of all of the things that I envisioned. I find that things are calmer, more serene in our new environment, and I credit this to one simple thing: driving less

Julie and I have both begun to use the DART rail system much, much more than we ever had before. She can take the train directly from home to her office, and so she has not driven her car in weeks, and I can park my car in Plano (I have found a secret garage that doesn't seem to check on such things) and only have to drive ten miles from the station to my school. This means on most days I get about an hour of time to read/study on the train while I ride the twenty or so miles into downtown, which has been really relaxing. The train is coming, so I have to go, but I thought I would share and advocate that if you have the chance, give it a shot.

The Stone Era Has Arrived

2008-09-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

This post is entirely self-gratifying in the most obvious of ways. In fact, I think only one other person will appreciate this, and he may be so caught up in peddling chicken across the Southern U.S. that he does not even read this blog anymore, but I will continue anyway.

Long ago the chicken-man taught me to play basketball....and I loved it! I have been playing consistently for the past near-decade (hard to believe), and in recent years I have developed a fair game for a slow white-guy (the distance running gives me a lot of stamina, which helps make up for obvious other deficiencies). Mr. Chicken and I spent several years wearing each other down in surprisingly fun and competitive games of full-court-1-on-1-to-a-hundred until we moved apart. Since then I have plied my craft at local gyms and rec-centers on a several-times-a-week basis.

Finally, after years of working my way up through the D-Leagues, a team picked me up from the garbage heap and asked me to play on their YMCA team. Here's the kicker - they think I am good. I get to be the number one scoring option (maybe this is more of an indication of how bad the other guys are).

Tonight was our unveiling....not terribly pretty. We scored 57 points, which they said was the most their team had scored in the previous three years they have been involved in the downtown league, but the other teach scored close to 70. I had something in the range of 15-18 points, but I truly could not care less. It was a blast to play in a real game....I had never done that.

So, Chad, I thought you would be happy and maybe even a little proud that your project is still going strong. I appreciate it....EAT MORE CHICKEN.

I Concede My Time to...

2008-09-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

My brother is much more interesting than I am tonight. Enjoy some pics of the strangest sh%$t I think I have ever seen.

Friendly Confines

2008-08-31T06:09:00.000-07:00

We have moved on from the wonderful chill and constant drizzly rain of Cloudcroft to the equally chilly and rain-soaked mountains of Ruidoso. I have stolen away to the Starbucks down the street this morning (I know, it is an absolute crime to frequent a coffee-chain when there are numberless mom-n-pop shops around town, but, alas, I am a creature of habit/comfort, so here I am) to do some studying, so I thought I would update.

I will leave you with some trivia questions from the game we played last night. No cheating.

1. What is the largest freshwater lake in the world?

2. What singer won the 1964 Alabama-Mississippi State Fair?

3. What was H.G. Wells' first novel?

4. What does a piscatologist excel at?

5. What was the name of Scarlett O'Hara's homestead?

Did I Say Thirty....Um....

2008-08-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I am a liar. Not even a week in, and I already failed my challenge. I ask for your grace, though. Julie and I, as you can see are far from the friendly confines of our Dallas skyline, green-lighted buildings or Starbucks on every corner. With all the upheaval in our life these last few months, and particularly on account of Julie's changing of jobs, we did not take any sort of vacation to speak of this summer. So, we took a long weekend and are spending it in New Mexico. Currently we are in Cloudcroft in a rented cabin that could not be more secluded (see: right). We will go to Ruidoso for a couple of nights before heading back after Labor Day.

Now for my excuse. We get here last night, and it is pretty rustic by 2008 standards. The roads are gravel, which did not bode well for my tiny little Mini, and there is not even cable television (that is not entirely true - we get FoxNews, and basically nothing else - we are not sure if that is actually better than no tv at all, but it certainly helps prove my point that FoxNews is taking over the world. In a place that does not even have cable, how would one expect to find an internet connection? It was not until this morning that I came upon the internet connection while snooping around a bit. So, here we are.

Julie has been thrilled with fireplace. It has been raining, windy and cold (for two Dallasites) all night and day, so there has been a constant fire.

Mostly we have spent the day in and out of the hot tub and reading. I started school this last week, so I already have a pile of books to get through. I started one today that I would love to blog about, but I will wait until later to give it a full description. It is a history of hermeneutics for a class of the same name, though I think it could just as easily have been titled: Studies in Heidegger's Being and Time. What is think is so fascinating about the book, in light of the discussions I have been having of late, is the link that the author is making between Protestant hermeneutical principles, beginning with Augustine and continuing with Luther and beyond, and postmodern philosophy. A very convincing, logical case is being made, at least in my opinion thus far, between Protestant hermeneutics and postmodern, Heideggerian philosophy.

More to come, but for now we are going to eat.

I'm Tired

2008-08-27T21:13:00.001-07:00

No blogging tonight. Sorry.

Should Have Said No

2008-08-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

She leaned in close, the light reflecting off her slightly disheveled locks of red that wisped still constrained from her largish forehead. It was in this moment that the darkness of the window-lighted room hit him, giving her words and eerie permanence, a presence their own that he had not anticipated. Her whisper, thick, Hungarian, could have penetrated deaf ears, "Are you serious about this?" Without even giving him so much as an instant to answer - not that he would have, the sudden gravity had sunk him deeply into the crimson cotton beneath him - she asked again, with a voice rising only enough for effect. "Are you serious about this? Do you just need the credit....or....are you serious about this course?"

The onus had fallen to him. She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over the sea of black material dotted with gold and ornaments of jewels and metals dangling across her chest, and she waited.

************

This was the scene that played out a few minutes ago as I met with one of my professors for the first time. We have discussed doing and independent study for the Fall semester, but today was the first time we sat and worked through what would be covered. After leaving her office forty-five minutes later, all I can say is that it probably would have been prudent of me to say NO.

In all seriousness, I am very excited about studying Thomas Mann with her this semester. She is a revered member of the UTD faculty, and I am exceedingly fortunate that she has taken enough interest in my studies to do this with me. Mann is her area of expertise, and I believe she is truly excited to immerse me in her idol. My wariness comes from the fact that Mann is incapable of writing with brevity. For instance, his brother, Heinrich, wrote an essay that attacked Thomas, criticizing him for his political leanings. Heinrich's essay was ten or less pages - a standard length for such a thing - so Thomas immediately sets out to write an essay in response. He does so, but his spans 700+ pages. She gave me a few works to begin with, but even this handful is already somewhere in the ballpark of 3o00 pages! Maybe next semester I can study a cartoonist or something.

Blessed Normalcy

2008-08-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

It is washing over me now like the cool rains that have watered the black asphalt beneath me these last few weeks. I recollect the feelings of just one year ago today, the dread of starting another school year, being tethered to a classroom and high school students I neither knew nor cared much to know, fighting with the bureaucracy of a graduate student's existence in what seemed to be a futile effort to graduate with a degree that for all practical purposes was finished months prior. The angst and unrest was palpable, as I am sure one could tell from the blog entries of those days.

This year is different on the eve of my first day of classes. As the grainy picture indicates, Julie and I are currently sitting on the patio toasting the advent of a new semester with a sense of ease and enjoyment. I will be taking more graduate hours at one time than I ever have previously, and, though I am only teaching part-time the tutoring load will be substantial, but none of these things are weighing as heavily this year as they have in the past. I realized this summer how much I crave what has become normal. Summers are not normal. Structure is normal. A harried pace, deadlines, expectations, study; these things are normal.

So, if you are so inclined, raise a glass with Julie and I (we prefer cheap champagne, but you can substitute with the beverage of your choice) and let us toast to the return of the grind of the beautiful mundane. Cheers!

I Kant Believe It

2008-08-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it is a cheap tag-line, but I wanted to include a couple of quotes from Kant to help with my present argument with myself. I have been chewing on these notions of Truth and Beauty, and I was reminded of his Critique of Judgment that I read in my undergrad, so I pulled it from the shelf and read a bit to see what he came up with. Here are a few snippets that might be worth consideration.

**Kant is talking about aesthetic-judgment here, but I think it applies equally well to the present considerations***

"If we wish to decide whether something is beautiful or not, we do not use understanding to refer the presentation to the object so as to give rise to cognition; rather, we use imagination to refer the presentation to the subject and his feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Hence a judgment of taste is not a cognitive judgment and so is not a logical judgment but an aesthetic one, by which we mean a judgment whose determining basis cannot be other than subjective."

In my present musings, I liken what he is writing to the Christian faith. The question that must be answered when defending a position such as the one that I have taken is: Do you believe in absolute truth? The answer is one of those great Yes/No's that modern and postmodern philosophers love to give. The very fact that we can get to the notion of God logically (see: Aquinas...etc) necessitates that there is perfection (aka: Truth), but surely we cannot for a second believe that finite human beings are capable of grasping such a thing.

Let us take Kant's words as an example. In the same way that I cannot judge beauty without filtering the perception through the instrument of imaginative thought, so too must abstract concepts such as Truth, Beauty, God, grace..... go through a similar, if not the same, filter. To believe that our filters cannot be dirtied or obstructed in some fashion seems absurd at best, and outright hubristic at worst. Why must we insist on having insight into such things with the same clarity as the mind of God?

***I lost the other passage that went along with what I was saying (cut me some slack, though; it's a bit book), so I have one other piece that is relatively unrelated but interesting to the study***

"A judgment of taste requires everyone to assent; and whoever declares something to be beautiful holds that everyone ought to give his approval.... We solicit everyone else's assent because we have a basis for it that is common to all. Indeed, we could count on that assent, if only we could always be sure that the instance had been subsumed correctly under that basis, which is the rule for approval."

Even big-scary-enemy-of-the-church Kant leaves more than mere room for religious expression. I believe denominational worship could fall under this umbrella. We agree on certain principles of the faith as a community, and our community might differ in areas from another (ex: Catholic vs. Baptist vs. Methodist...etc), but each is agreeing on terms that their members agree upon as standards of worship. Within these standards there is room for expectations of propriety and solidarity of belief, but the one group cannot in good conscience denigrate the others who are merely assenting to different boundaries and interpretations.

I realize this line of thought is not expanded to its fullest potential, and questions abound that must be dealt with, particularly relating to limits on deviation from one group to another while still being considered an interpretation of the same thing, but I do not think this is far off. The beauty of grace (at least the way I understand it) is in the ability as believers to approach the taking up of our faith with fear and trembling, but not a fear that leads to stagnation.

A Giant Can of Worms

2008-08-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

Despite my best efforts, of late I have once again become entangled in a series of arguments with my friends and colleagues concerning what amounts to a defense of a postmodern-Christianity. Even the term "postmodern" is inherently fraught with dangerous connotations, and I hesitate to use the word too much, but I believe it is a fairly accurate word, as long as we can agree on certain terms that it does and does not embody. For the purpose of today's entry, I will focus on one.

Taken from the preface to A Postmodern Reader, which is a collection of philosophical essays on the subject, the editor hits at a point that I find critical to such a discussion. He writes, "If one of the messages of the postmodern is that cultural values are always local and particular, and not universal and eternal...." He comes to certain conclusions, but I believe for the purpose of my defense, the simple statement that truths (yes, the "s" is there on purpose) are localized within specific communities.

I am aware that there are some buzz-words in the last paragraph that sets some of your radars off: "No such thing as eternal!", but hear me out. Throughout the centuries philosophers have struggled with notions of Truth and Beauty, and even the most valiant efforts have ended in frustration, because it these do not seem to be things that can be applied across a universal spectrum apart from setting cultural/communal norms to govern what is good or bad, right or wrong.

The Christian community is just that, a community. We have agreed upon certain principles to govern us - namely biblical morality. We have shaped all in the image of a Judeo-Christian understanding of God, and if we are willing to acquiesce to the notion that our understanding is still just that, OUR understanding, based upon perceptions ascertained through the imperfect human lenses of ourselves, then we can live and worship with definite senses of Truth, Beauty and Goodness.

The problem seems to come when we try to work our understanding of such things into universals. We come up with clever excuses why polygamy was allowed in ancient times, apparently approved by God then, but only for a limited time, and we rest comfortably that we are in the right. Murder is wrong, but not in the case of Just-War. Lying is sin, but not if it protects one's family from danger. The very fact that we cannot consistently hold to any ethic should not leave us disconcerted, though; rather, it should cause us to further embrace the very postmodern notion that Truth may be less definable than we hope. God is not castrated; he is mysterious and largely unknowable in any perfect sense.

Just some thoughts.

Playin' It Safe

2008-08-22T09:52:00.001-07:00

After yesterday's near collapse of my Ripken-esque 1-day-consecutiv-blogging streak, I thought I would attempt an earlier entry. I have been tutoring and working on school-stuff all morning, so my insights are shallower than usual (I think my brain is going on strike until I put some food other than candy in my stomach). Maybe I will offer some more views from up high.

We have become spoiled with all the space in our living room.

A shot from the balcony. I was waiting on Julie to come home (she now rides the DART rail and walks a few blocks), so in theory that might be her in the crosswalk.

This week has been basically a daily monsoon, and I have found myself transfixed by watching the storms roll in from the West.

Close Call

2008-08-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

Wow, one day into my ambitious blogging challenge and I just nearly forgot to blog. Does anyone really think this will possibly last a full month? - I certainly have my doubts.

Rather than continue the tour of the apartment and the surrounding area, I wanted to show a couple of pictures that I found on the camera when I was uploading the pics from last night. Julie and I are the world's worst at documenting our lives visually. I am always so impressed with those people that always seem to have a camera with them, and they are able to remember every event through these digital pixelations. I assumed that such traits where indigenous to all women and a handful of men, sort of like fashion or a sense of cleanliness, but, alas, I was wrong. My wife is incredible at so many things, but when it comes to picture taking she is no better than I am.

With that said, I came across pics of our trip to Mexico over Christmas with my family. It was such a fabulous time, and these pictures made me laugh. So, here you go.

Tell me this. If your primary function was restaurant that served large quantities of alcoholic beverages, do you thin, the best idea is to put a floating trampoline 50 yards out into the water and then invite drinkers of said-alcohol to do flips into the water? I was trying to explain this to some friends today as we looked at the pics, and, despite trying to justify why drinking and swimming in deep water was perfectly rational at the time, I now realize that is a recipe for disaster. All the same, I am very impressed that Julie was able to snap some mid-air pictures.

On an entirely different note, I started a new book yesterday that I feel I should recommend. Due to reasons that I cannot now remember, I have been introduced in the last two years to Cormac McCarthy as a serious literary figure of the 21st Century. I read No Country for Old Men before the movie came out, finished his newest, The Road, this summer, and a few weeks ago I read the very controversial (at least in Texas) Child of God, but the one I have been waiting to read, Blood Meridian, which I have now heard two people I esteem greatly recommend, is quickly moving to the top of the heap. For those of you who have not given him a read, let me say that I believe it to be well worth your time. He has a straight-forward simplicity that does not overwhelm those interested in a light-read, but his story-telling is off the charts. For what it is worth, I thought I would throw that plug in.

Good night.

Meet the Neighbors

2008-08-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

I know that I have already met my self-imposed blogging requirement for the day, but after sitting for a few minutes out on the balcony with my trusty black pipe burning strong in the cool breeze (I cannot believe how pleasant the weather has been in the evenings this week), I could not resist posting a picture or two of our new neighbors.

More pics are coming soon, but I am a fan of a slow-reveal, so for now enjoy the view that I am taking in at this very moment.

30-Day Challenge

2008-08-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

Are you ready, Blogworld? There is a better than zero chance that I will fail miserably at what I am going to try and do for the next month, but I am putting it out there nonetheless. I have been inconsistent at best with this whole blogging things, and I realize, much to my vanity's dismay, that I have been neglecting the only form of communication that I have with some friends and family. I also have recognized how much I enjoy other people's blogs, even when they only write a few lines of update. With these things in mind, I am committing to myself to blog, be it short or long, quality or drivel (I really know how to sell it, huh?) that I will blog everyday for the next month (by the way, this counts for today....even if I stop after this sentence).

I will get to the move, including pictures, very soon, but I will start with what is going on in the immediate moment. At this moment I am sitting in a place I was sure I never would again. I turned in my resignation, said my goodbyes and drove away from POPCS in May with dreams of a life devoted to my own academic pursuits apart from the cares of sixteen-year-olds, but, alas, here I sit behind the same desk (it's actually a different desk in a different room, but that does not sound nearly so romantic) preparing for another school year. A very nice part-time position was offered to me this summer that I could not pass up, and so I have been neck-deep in meetings and high school trivialities this week. Here is the funny thing, though. I remember hating much of these meetings last year, dreading each day of sitting and being bombarded with rules and procedures, but this year is entirely different. I am not sure if it is purely a matter of knowing my colleagues like old friends, or no longer being overwhelmed by the newness of the place, or maybe it is just a matter of not being tethered to a full-time position here, but I find this place quite enjoyable....even the boring meetings have been pleasant.

More to come later, but for now I need to do some of the work they are paying me for.

A Question of Essence

2008-07-27T14:54:00.001-07:00

I have been lately brought back in the course of my thinking to a word that I have not long pondered for any significant length of time until most recently: Essence. Simply defined, essence is the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character. Further in the list of definitions for the word there is another fitting phrase, the likes of which I fear I could never compose so poetically: basically and without regard for peripheral details, fundamentally…critically important.

In considering the term, I am suddenly reminded of one of the readings from my days as an undergraduate studying philosophy. Having just this minute picked up a worn copy of St. Thomas’ On Being and Essence, my dim remembrances are both confirmed and strengthened by a cursory reading. Allow me to share a bit. From the first chapter: We ought to get our knowledge of simple things from composite things and arrive at what is prior by way of what is posterior, so that the learning process will begin, appropriately, with what is easier. For this reason we must begin with the meaning of ‘a being’ and proceed to the meaning of an essence. The importance of this, as he explains in greater detail later, is that a being (human or otherwise) is a composite of many parts, complex, but essence is simple, singular. Further, he argues that essence can be understood in two ways, one being, absolutely, according to its proper meaning. In this sense nothing is true of it except what belong to it as such; whatever else may be attributed to it, the attribution is false. For example, to man as man belong ‘rational’, ‘animal’, and everything else included in his definition; but ‘white’ or ‘black’, or any similar attribute not included in the notion of humanity, does not belong to man as man. In short, essence is the fundamental aspect that makes a thing that which it, and the accidentals that are attached to it are something else entirely.

So what of essence? Essence is not the conglomeration of elements come together over a duration of time or consequences; these are attributes, each hung on a man like Christmas ornaments from a pine. As observed in man, these ornaments are character or personality, but certainly not essence. Essence is far more primal than that. It is the building block for all other terms that might flow thereafter, a foundational piece composed of few elements. Essence is neither adaptable nor shed easily; it lies hidden beneath the surface, having been formed before anything was built upon it, like a cement slab beneath the Eiffel Tower.

What spurred such ramblings? – you might ask. I feel as if I have been uncovering my essence these last few weeks away, back home. Feelings and emotions, normally filled with cathartic images that must be slain like dragons reissuing from the dead each year, have been replaced with a different sort of flooding like old friends into my consciousness. Peace and calm fill the spaces reserved for regret and masochism as I walk the halls and drive the roads of my youth. It is as if the angst and restlessness of those years were merely the ornaments of personality clouding the essence that was founded in the bedrock of my creation – something like a DNA strand that, when decoded, reveals who a person is despite the outward camouflaging of skin and habit and age and guise. The Texas heat and the thin cool of mountain air have breathed into me an appreciation for my own essence, whatever that might be

Checkin' In

2008-07-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

I thought this might be a good time for an official Stonelife-Update. Julie and I have the tendency to act like hermits, so for those of you who still claim us, this is probably a good way to tell you what is going on.

After a year at POPCS, we felt compelled for me to leave my job and focus exclusively on my own schooling. The time-restraint on a full-time teacher makes working full time on a post-graduate degree difficult at best with all of the meetings, paper-work, and general downtime where I am supposed to be doing "work" things while at that building. Although practically and financially it was not the wisest of decisions, we felt very strongly to move in that direction, so I quit my job with no prospects for employment apart from schooling. It was not two-weeks into summer that I received a call from POPCS that they had a part-time position that they opened up and would like me to fill. It was incredible timing. I have not agreed to do it yet, and we have not worked out the particulars with them yet, but it looks like the perfect blending of my two lives, teaching and studying, so we are excited about that. I also have lined up working with a tutoring agency starting in the fall, so who knows what that will entail.

Ever-consistent Julie has thrown me for a loop this summer as well. After debating for the better part of the last few months about changing apartments and jobs (her, not me), deciding that she loved where she worked and lived, she came and suggested looking at different apartments when our lease runs out at the end of the summer, and she wanted to explore options for working in a larger firm. It has been something of a whirlwind the last few weeks. She has interviewed with several large firms in Dallas, and she has had several offers made that she now has to choose between. On top of that, we decided to give true city-living a shot, and we are signing a lease with one of two highrises in downtown soon. We are making up our mind as to which one this weekend, but either will be in the heart of downtown, so that is exciting for us. We'll see.

I got all geared up to write this, but now that I started I am tiring out. This will have to suffice for now.

Let's Play a Game

2008-06-24T05:34:00.000-07:00

I have a game for you. You all used to play them when you were younger, so you should be good at this. I have two pictures for you; tell me what is different about the two.

Let's do a warm-up round:

I think you're ready for the speed round:

The One Benefit of Aging

2008-06-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

Let us begin with a bit of preface: I know I don't do this very often (the writing, not the prefacing....apparently I am incapable of writing a sentence without 1500 asides/prefaces..etc) but I thought I would jump back into the blog world for a few-and-far-between type post. In actuality, I have been doing a great deal of writing, probably more than I ever have, but it has just not been bloggable. Sorry to keep the masses waiting, but today I was inspired.

Preface #2: If you are squeamish about a 20-something talking about aging, you are welcome to hit the BACK button, because this is not for you. Fair enough? You've been warned.

The last year or so, as I may have mentioned before, has been a progressive realization about how different life is becoming. Without question, I am getting older. Some tell-tale signs:

1. I am prone to soreness. Stupid as it may sound, this has been the first year EVER that I have had to stretch. I have been an active athlete for my entire life, and I'm not talking about stretching for the added benefit of flexibility or competitiveness; no, I am talking about HAVING to stretch in order to drag my tired legs up and down a court or city street. It is damned irritating, and if I don't do it (not just before, mind you, but most especially afterward) I pay for it later. I will play basketball in the morning, and I promise you I will feel like a small child is living inside of my hamstrings tightening it like a bow and arrow.

2. College kids (yes, kids) irritate the hell out of me. Wasn't it just a year or so ago that I was one of them? Well, not anymore apparently. Now, I neither relate to them, nor tolerate their youthfulness without rolling my eyes or exiting the room. Yes, it makes me a curmudgeonish bastard, but its becoming increasingly true. That gap is widening by the day.

3. I don't get carded anymore...ever. There is the occasional rule-follower-guy at the bar or restaurant that asks for my idea in the same way that he would for my mother, but apparently I don't look like a child anymore (even after I shaved the beard down to stubble...oh, yeah, I shaved the beard down to stubble). I thought I would relish the day I no longer had to pull out my ID for the purchasing of alcohol, but it's a little sad.

4. More friends than not either have kids or are planning in the near future to have them. This was not too long ago a statistical anomaly that the Gerlt's filled in my life, but now it is becoming increasingly stranger to those that I meet that I DON'T have children.

5. My closest friends are doing real careers. The aforementioned Gerlt's, as most readers of this blog know, are big-wig chicken sellers, Will actually runs a successful church, my long-lost buddy Shaun runs a very successful web-based company: Randomshirts.com (check em out if you haven't) and...you won't know many other names of my friends probably. My wife, by the way, is interviewing with some of the largest firms in Dallas for positions that still sound absurdly too professional for two kids from DBU.

This last bullet brings me to the actual point of my blogging exercise today. I had a great surprise this morning at church. I have fallen off the church wagon lately; my attendance his been far more miss than hit, and I still have not found a place that I am comfortable with (another post for another day), but I went to Church of the Incarnation today. It is an Episcopal church that I have heard about since my undergrad days at DBU, and it is no more than 5-minutes from our apartment, so I sneaked in as the service was starting this morning. The liturgy was great, but then when it came time for the sermon I was greeted with a wonderful surprise: my DBU friend David was delivering the message.

Dave was one of those guys in college that always seemed so serious and focused. I have been fortunate enough to live in a community of academic idealists/dreamers, the majority of which are still pursuing post-graduate degrees of different varieties, but, even among this group of high-minded ideal-mongers, Dave stood out as particularly committed to his path. He was sure from the time he was pretty young that he would be committed to Christian ministry, and apparently he is following through. I don't exactly know the hierarchy, but he is what amounts to a seminarian in waiting in the Episcopal Church. He is something of an understudy as best I can figure.

His sermon was fantastic, but I found myself secretly satisfied while I listened that it was one of 'us' up there on stage doing something special. Most of this group of friends have spent the better part of a decade pursuing some pipe-dream of intellectual accomplishment at the end of varying educational rainbows, and Dave is there. I was very impressed, and it helped me realize the most beneficial thing about growing up: you get to accomplish those things that you have been saying you'd do "when you grow up."

Well, Dave, I raise my Modelo to you right now. You brightened my day in unquantifiable ways.

Picture of a Picture of a Picture of Stupidity

2008-05-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

I was a truly terrible coach (reason #489 that I have no business teaching school children) yesterday and skipped the Junior High Sports Banquet, but I could not bring myself to do it. I felt bad... I could give a laundry list of excuses, but let us be honest, I do not think I would have gone had it been the only thing possible to do with my evening. Have you ever been to one of these - it's as exciting as watching paint dry, only instead of paint, it's my soul, and, instead of drying, it's like rotting from the inside out.

My players came to me this afternoon and gave me a photo album, which was very cool of them. They are their parents were pleased with the season, and so they wanted to show their appreciation. The best picture in the album is this one:

It look innocent enough, and I wish I could remember the story as well as my players and their parents do, but they reminded me that the poor kid sitting next to me was in the process of, not patting me on the back or offering warm affection in the midst of a tough game; rather, he was in the beginning stages of what would soon become something like a bear hug to keep me from from being swallowed up by the white and black monster just out of the frame.

What the picture fails to show is that, just prior to this shot, in a moment of weakness on my part, I let a ref know what I thought of him, and particularly his calls that game as he ran by. It is fair to say that we had a disagreement with his officiating, ending with my repeatedly questioning his mental state. He T'd me up, and told me that "if [I] so much as moved from that seat again or said another word, he would throw [me] out of the gym." In my opinion, mission accomplished; I said what I needed to say, which made me feel better, and he did what he needed to do to shut me up. My poor kids were scared to death, though. Charles immediately clutched me as if I might spring out of my chair and attack the poor ref. Everyone had a good chuckle afterwards about the technical (my first and only, I believe), but they still will not let Charles live down his reaction. Now it is immortalized.

Party Like It's 1998!

2008-05-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Surreal. As I drove back to my apartment late Saturday night, it occurred to me that the evening had been like something requiring a time machine. I both A.) went to Prom, and B.) went to a Black Crowes concert. Throw in some Boone's Farm and some hormone-induced-angst (I liked to imagine myself brooding and mysterious...I was neither), and I might very well be seventeen again.

Not much to say about the Crowes. I loved them in high school, and I still do. This was the first live show I had been able to attend, and they were stellar. No complaints; no long-winded explanations as to their greatness. Instead, let us focus our attention on the appetizer of the evening: Prom. I learned some things that a few years removal from the land of MTV and The Bird (you Craneite's know of which grease-pit I refer) have taught me a thing or two.

1. High School students look stupid in tuxes. It doesn't matter your build, your choice of colors, your anything - each and everyone one of you look like you are playing dress-up in your dad's clothes. Our moms convinced us that we looked something other than imbecilic, but they were either lying or blinded by motherly affection, because it is nothing more than pure comedy to see sixteen-year-olds dress up like James Bond for the evening. The girls do not quite embarrass themselves in their get-ups; maybe it is because most of them have at least some experience looking presentable. As a junior in high school, the ONLY time most guys put on anything resembling formal attire is for prom or cousin's wedding. Anything requiring more than combing one's hair is dressy, and so nights like Prom are far exceeding the bounds of a young man's abilities to maintain any level of cool.

2. Chaperone's will find a way to imbibe. Enough said.

3. You could not pay me enough to turn the clock back a decade. There are times I watch and listen to my students and I think, "If I was in their shoes, I would...." It is at those times that I think how interesting it might be to reverse time and redo some of those things I regret with the experience and wisdom of a few years' growth. Then there are an overwhelming majority of times that I see their awkwardness, their neediness, their insecurity, their drama, their inability to see beyond the nose on their face...etc, and I KNOW that it is a sign of God's grace that I cannot possibly go back there save for some future incident involving Marty McFly and Doc. Saturday, I kicked my feet up on one of the tables and watched the parade of teenagedness, and sighed a deep breath of relief that I am quickly becoming an old man.

4. I am turning quickly into the little-old-man that my students think of me as. Proof 1: I stayed out until 1 a.m., and I'm pretty sure that is the first time this semester I can say that. I felt like a rebel, like a teenager, but mostly I felt lame. Proof 2: I did not know a single eff'ing song that they were excited to dance to. I knew the 'oldies', like Edwin McCain and Bon Jovi (yeah, they still play both of those people at dances), but they might as well have been Elvis or Patsy Cline as far as the kids were concerned. Proof 3...and this is the big one: I was asked politely to move farther away from the dance floor, because the prommer's were getting uncomfortable...no joke.

The Thud You Hear...

2008-05-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

...may be my head sinking -- no, not sinking. how about crashing, violently-crashing -- on my faux-oak desk. I am a bit of a melodramatic when it comes to writing; I like the poetry of overstating things, but I am in an existential quandary at this moment, a funk, that I am having trouble making heads or tails of.

When I last left the blogworld, things were set. I felt 'on the right track'. Since that time...all one or two-weeks of this odyssey, the wheels have since come flying from their bolts, and I am careening somewhere in the vicinity a black hole of blood-filled death --like I mentioned, hyperbole is something like a defense mechanism. Long story shortened (I know myself better than to ever call one of my stories: short), I was rejected in my bid to A) get a job with the university, and B) get them to pay for my tuition. Instead, I am jobless, and they are sillily
demanding that I pay them a small fortune each semester for the privilege of working my arse off. There was never a guarantee that I would get the position, but I was led to believe that it was a given, and I have been working under that assumption all along. Alas, what can I say, "screws fall out of doors; the world's an imperfect place"...possibly a misquote, but that's the way I remember it.

I was geared up to type more, to wail and gnash my teeth, but I do not have the energy right now. I am in what doctors call a funk, and, though I am questioning the legitimacy of this argument even as I now type, it seems like the best way to exorcise the demons of doubt and potential failure is to broadcast my inner angst on the computer-machine hooked up to the internet-web. We shall see.

2008-04-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

I have been remiss in my blogging; not that I have heard complaints to that effect, but I assume the silent masses have been groaning under the oppressive lack of knowledge about what is transpiring in the fast-times-at-stonelife these days. Quite simply, not much. Regardless, because this is about the only way I communicate with friends and families, besides the warm tones of my outgoing voicemail message (that seems to be my brother's favorite), let me offer for your edification a synopsis of the past few months.

*I have just completed my first semester of Ph.D work at UTD. I took a course in literature of the Weimar Republic in Germany, which basically entails the literary explosion that occurred just after WWI in Germany. Concerning the reading load, it was maybe the most fascinating single class I have taken. I was exposed to a world of thinkers and an era of writing that I did not even know existed. Germany has never recoverd intellectually from the Great Wars, but their legacy in these early writers should survive even the destructive influences of Hitler. I am at least considering focusing my future dissertation work on this era...stay tuned. I also took an intro-Humanities course that is required for all grad students. Though far from the most challenging course I have ever taken, this was an eye-opening experience. Whereas at UD, we studied the "humanities" almost entirely literarily, in this course we approached the study with the breadth that such an undertaking requires. We read a wide variety of texts, from classics to science, and we studied music and art from those classically trained in each. The thinking was almost entirely abstract and lacking in direction at times, but it allowed me to begin experimenting with the creativity that will be expected in the remainder of this program. It also cuased me to expand my view of what a degree grounded in the humanities might entail apart from teaching. All in all, it was a good start.

I am enrolled in a creative writing class that begins in about a month, and then in the Fall I will hopefully be taking a full course-load (12 hours!!) and not teaching full-time. I am hoping for a position at the university, but Julie and I are committed to me finishing in just a few years, so we are going to find a way to make it work. I am really, really excited; nervous, but excited. I have never NOT had a full-time job while attending school. From the time I moved to Sherman I have always maintained both work and study, but it seems like the right way to approach my current studies to devote myself fully to them.

*Julie took the CPA exam and passed 3 of the 4 sections, which we were really proud of. She is currently studying for the 1 remaining, and she will hopefully be completed with the test before June. I know she is ready to quit studying.

I wish there was more to say, but we live a pretty quiet existence in our tiny apartment. Hopefully, if any of you are still out there, I'll add more later.

Apples and Oranges

2008-03-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

A fundamental question must be asked of each believer living on Earth, does it not? "What is my purpose," would be one way to put it, but I prefer another similar oblique look at the same issue: why incarnation, why humanity?

We were not created in a bubble; we do not exist in a Platonic vacuum, operating only in the ether, disembodied spirits in unhindered acts of worship without bodily concerns. No, we were created in an environment ruled by the human being. One can hardly argue that God did not privilege the human above all other things, giving man dominion over the Earth, allowing man the only opportunity in creation to partake of the imago dei, and God choosing this earthen vessel as a house for the god-man, Jesus.

Man was not only tolerated as a necessary evil the plan of God; he was given artistic outlets, creating and subduing creation from the beginning , participating in this godlike act in ways that other creatures could not. The first chapters of Genesis speak to this creative function of humanity. Adam embraced his humanness, naming the creatures of God on Earth, and engaging in the human right of marriage. Much of the Old Testament speaks to the governing of man on Earth. Imperfect as man's efforts in governing were, God did not abolish the function of government itself; instead, he continually called his leaders to both follow him AND lead justly. The New Testament, likewise, offers salvation dripping with abundant life, in both this life and the next. What purpose do books like James serve apart from guiding one's endeavors while embodying the human form?

Why, in light of privileged humanness, are we believers so very insistent on denying our two-fold existence. Agreed, there is a metaphysical component to one's life - a hope unseen and unknown, but we cannot divorce ourself from then context we have been placed into any more than we can decide the breathing of oxygen violates our faith in God. We look not, as one of my favorite folksingers croons, for a 'Saviour on Capitol Hill", but we with equal certainty do not throw up our hands in surrender, pining for the completion of time not yet fulfilled.

I ask, why not 'hope'? Is my hope in God so fragile that it cannot be divided? I love my wife without fear that such love will undermine my love for God, that an increase (or existence) of the one does not necessitate a denial of the other.

We search not for a new saviour; our is sufficient for salvation, but he has chosen not to rule as a Pharoah upon the throne, God in the form of man as ruler. In fact, his incarnation existed in a civil society governed by the laws of Caesar, laws which he both obeyed and advocated. His death was even a Socrates-like submission to these authorities. Saviour aside, what is the danger of hoping for a good leader? We exist as beings living in the flesh; should we not choose to live out our condition fully and in thankful submission to our state?

Obama

2008-02-22T12:39:00.000-08:00

Let me assure you of something, you nor I have ever been privy to the spectacle I was involved in on a random February morning in Dallas yesterday. As I mentioned in my last post (the first one in months, I know), I was able to attend the Barak Obama rally at Reunion Arena yesterday morning. The 6 pm news reported attendance to be in the range of 20K people, which makes it easily the largest political event in Dallas history.

As we drove near (within 4-5 blocks) the arena, there was a sea of people flooding from side streets and main access roads towards Reunion. For the next couple of hours people did not stop crowding the lawns and parking garages trying to gather what often amounted to only a distant glimpse of one who appears to be perhaps the most galvanizing political figure of our lifetime. Even amidst this endless ocean, complete with a series of lines wrapping around five levels of the garage and down several city blocks of reserve parking and interstate byways, people standing for literal hours not moving an inch closer to the closed doors, I heard nothing but cheers and excitement at being there. People were just happy, truly united under a common cause, even if only for that morning.

Due to a fortuitous surging of the line we were in and a lack of sufficient control of the crowd by the woefully unprepared city of Dallas, we were able to not only get into the building, which is more than I can say for everyone in line that day, but we also were able to stand mosh-pit style only 20 feet or so from the foot of the stage (my calves are still sore from standing so long). Once inside it was like a rock concert or a Mav’s game; in fact, one of the speakers prior to Obama said, “I gotta believe if we would have cheered this loud last year we might have been able to beat the Warriors!” Complete with the obligatory crowd-waves, though there were no beachballs that I saw, the raucous crowd cheered and chanted, danced to the music, and erupted in cheering at even the thought that he might emerge from the tunnel.

Former Dallas Mayor and Obama confidant Ron Kirk spoke first. I had only heard the negative about Kirk in the years since his term ended, but he was an outstanding speaker, and a worthy representative of the Democratic Party. I think I could have listened to him for another hour and would have been content (he issued the Mavericks line, now that I think about it). After him came the truly comical portion of the program. Emmitt Smith was allowed the opportunity to do what he has been doing all season on ESPN: make an ass of himself. Listen, this guy was a hell of an athlete, but, and let me be clear, HE CANNOT STRING A COHERENT SENTENCE TOGETHER!!! We began to think that this was a ploy by Obama’s people to make him sound better. Had Obama gone after Kirk we might not have been so blown away by his rhetorical skill, but after Emmitt? – he was a Rhodes Scholar in comparison. My favorite part: (Emmitt was gaining momentum and getting more confusing and flustered by the minute...and he was shouting like a very short Howard Dean) “…In the words of Dr. King… ‘I have a dream…uhm, uh.. that little boys and girls will be, uh…able to do stuff together…and, uh, mmm, that things will be great…and….” I am not sure if he trailed off or completed the thought, because I was rolling on the floor and praying to Jesus that he would keep talking. Who knew Dr. King was such a bad speaker, right?

Finally, after almost three-hours of standing that day, the crowd surged with applause and hysteria as Obama took the stage. Agree or disagree with his politics, one cannot argue with the fact that his presence is electric. For the next hour or so we hung on every word, laughed at every joke (he’s much more clever than he has been portrayed in the media), and left truly wanting to believe what he had said. His message, a mix between preacher and political mouthpiece, was unabashedly simple: Hope can prevail amidst cynicism. He did not hide from the fact that he was an idealist, that he believed in the possibility of change. Citing his critics, he outright refused to ‘grow up’, stating that such a statement implied the notion that with age comes the crushing of dreams. This resonated with me most. I am becoming these past few years more and more jaded and cynical, and to see a middle aged man hanging on to youthful vigor and dreams is something admirable.

Barack You Like a Hurricane

2008-02-19T12:31:00.001-08:00

As my new favorite website informed me yesterday evening, Barack Obama is coming to Big-D tomorrow for a speaking engagement. I have not been terribly political in recent months; in fact, the scope of my politicization has been centered on scoffing at Granpa-McCain's good-ol'-boy false humility, Huckabee's ultra-Christianity, Hillary's melt-the-paint-off-your-walls nasal tones, and basically any other reason not to vote for one candidate or another. I am admittedly not the most politically savvy, but I have been strangely drawn to Obama's charisma and energy. There is just something about a presidential candidate who sounds presidential that is appealing. I am not saying that I am ready to jump on the Obama bandwagon just yet, but I am curious enough to want to hear him speak.

As I was driving to school this morning I was musing on how to finagle my way to this event on a school day. After coming up with elaborate schemes to free me up for the few hours it would take to head to Reunion and join the mob, I did the illogical - I asked my principle. He quickly agreed with me that it would be a great opportunity to take some of the senior Government students to hear him, and so we lined up a bus and are heading that way tomorrow. I have nothing to do with the Politics department, but, probably because it was my idea, they are letting me tag along. I am really, really excited about the whole thing.

I will give you details afterward, but I thought some of you might be excited with me.

It's a Brave New World

2008-01-24T06:21:00.000-08:00

Submitted last night for my Humanities course:

Paragraph: in response to Mihai Nadin’s The Civilization of Illiteracy

Will the drive to verbalize, the push towards language, ultimately be the catalyst for its destruction? Mihai Nadin, in the opening chapters of his text The Civilization of Illiteracy, outlines the changing nature of the world and its move from dependence upon traditional language to a technologically advanced, albeit technically illiterate culture. In the course of his opening arguments, it appears that the function of language is the conveyance of that which was previously unspoken and potentially inexpressible, but precisely this creative sense might also carry one inevitably beyond the necessity of language. One might enquire of another, “Isn’t the weather lovely,” but prior to that effusion of speech, there was only an unmet longing to share an experience with another. The unspoken reality existed as an instance in time, but it is through verbalization that one is able to appreciate and experience it fully, both individually and communally as a substantiated moment that is definable by the spoken word. Is it not the function of language that one’s experience is heightened and magnified by the ability to speak or write or even think intelligently on the matter? For instance, one can enjoy the music of a symphony, even to the point of being emotionally moved, but the cognitive function of identifying the source and scope of that feeling allows for full appreciation. The ability to not only quantify but also qualify an experience is peculiar to language alone. Mathematics can give certainty, music can evoke waves of emotional response, gymnastics can release physical energy, but it is the function of language to trump them all and allow for full experience of each through objectification. Enrichment, then, is a primary function of language. It is in this fight for further enrichment of experience that was otherwise complete in itself that pushes mankind beyond language. Language changes experience from the empirical to the intelligible, but this is a translation of an event that was previously an actuality apart from language. What if one could most fully appreciate the experience without translating the event into contrived words with designated definitions and connotations? In a sense, this drive towards language might also drive one back towards the primal experience both before and beyond the spoken word.

I have recently embarked upon what can only be described as either a potentially life-changing or time-wasting endeavor. Last night was meeting number three of the semester for the only "core" course that is required for my degree, and I am more confused about what is expected of me or should be hoped-for than I was a month ago. That (imagine an arrow pointing towards the paragraph in italics) counts as graduate work. Whereas UD would have required citations, concrete foundations.....I don't know - facts!, UTD is built much more around the concept of free thinking and independent research. Get this, they actually encourage creativity or academics.

The above paragraph was written in response to the assignment posted before the end of last week's class. I quote: "Write a paragraph."

(muffled discussion, frantic eyes searching..) "What do you mean by a paragraph? Over one of the books we are to read?"

"Speaking of...Do we have to buy all of these books on the list?"

Once again, I quote: (calmly) "If you are affluent...yes. If you are not...no."

"You just want us to write a paragraph?"

"Yes." (silence abounds).

Last night, while the glimmer of talking about something concretely hung on the horizon, the Dean of the School of the Arts and Humanities popped in for an impromptu Q&A session. A sampling of phrases from the hour of discussion:

"Some of the 'great books' of the Western tradition just aren't worth reading anymore."

"Ulysses is a waste of time."

"We cannot afford to build a curriculum based solely on the past."

"We must adapt our methods and message to a changing culture, not continue down the worn path of tradition."

I think for a minute I could actually feel Socrates rolling over in his grave. I am flabbergasted. This man is committing sacrilege, right? He has no place in the academics, right? I have spent the better part of the last decade having it drilled into me that the 'great tradition' is the only hope for humanity, and it is our duty as academics to carry on this rich tradition, 'irrigating deserts' along the way. UTD's stated mission, as was given through the Dean last night, is to turn this notion on its ear.

I am not sure what I yet think of this, but I am intrigued.

Groggy

2007-12-13T11:05:00.000-08:00

You know that feeling you get when you wake up from a long afternoon nap (Dad, I assume you have no idea what a nap feels like...but keep reading anyway), or you find yourself at 3:00 am alone on the couch with your plate still resting in your lap? Disoriented and confused, you look around and search frantically for the memory of where you are, and why you are in the position you are in - you begin the disappointing procedure of differentiating between dream world and real world. I am still in some strange groggy state right now, but my head is clearing.

This past semester has been trying, truly trying, but in a very unexpected way. For the first time in about as far back as my conscious allows me remember, I have not been in school officially. I was still teaching, I still had my comprehensive exams that loomed in the distance, but without the thrice weekly class sessions, the research papers, the meetings, the studying..etc - I anticipated a few months of rest, relaxation and luxurious living. What I found was something unexpected - a mist settled over the apartment, over my car, over my desk, into my clothes - everywhere. I was plagued by this existential discomfort, an edginess I could not shake. I felt tired, lazy, depressed at times...but I did not know why. I have equated it to something like the fear of freedom upon being released from prison. I have been analyzing it ad nauseam, but, suffice it to say, I have come to the decision that I am a freak. I want to be in school. Despite the insistence of some that 'callings' and 'goals' may not be worthwhile, I am forced by my conscience in this matter to disagree. Like a cat always seems to find their way home (unless they are drowned in a hot tub...that's right, we haven't forgotten), I was not comfortable being away from school before I was finished-finished.

This leads to my great news, which I have been a little hesitant to disclose to many. A couple of weeks ago I received word that I had been accepted in the Ph.D. program in Literature at the University of Texas at Dallas. Frankly, I have been a little afraid to celebrate it, because it does not yet seem real. I realize that I have years to go before I have accomplished anything, but this has been a distant dream since I was struggling to keep up in Philosophy courses at DBU. I will start in the Spring (assuming I did not bomb my comps earlier this week), which will put me back at another 'square-one', but, for now, I am celebrating. Julie is done! - I am done! We are going to live carefree for a few weeks....we'll worry about the next phase in January.

In the Words of a Great Man

2007-12-11T21:01:00.000-08:00

IT IS FINISHED!!!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Graduation....

2007-12-05T03:15:00.000-08:00

Not that I normally answer my cell phone with any regularity in the first place (I know, I am an ass), but the likelihood of me answering yesterday was diminished 100 times over by the events of the last two days. I lived the life of a hermit yesterday, a really bitter hermit, and my seclusion included avoiding the telephone and email in particular.

Let us rewind:

After a really good meeting on Wednesday with my NEW advisor (more to come on that later)
I cam home at 4:00 or so, ready to settle in to some light study, a glass or two of wine, and be in bed fairly early. Wednesday was a big day, after all.

Rewind further:

Nearly a calendar-year ago I was informed by the graduate secretary (for the sake of our conversation, we will dub her SATAN) that I had.....well, read for yourself the exact transcript.

(he cowers in fear, literally shaking and sweating as he opens the glass door into the office)

Unsuspecting Grad-Student: Good afternoon, Ms. N______. (trying to smile and look her in the eye)

SATAN: HOW DARE YOU ADDRESS ME BY MY NAME, YOU INSOLENT WORM.

Guy Wetting His Pants Now: I'm sorry, Gatekeeper-to-all-things-academic. (he makes the sign of the cross in her direction, ending with a Nazi-salute in her direction)

SATAN: THAT'S BETTER...YOU CAN GO NOW!

Soiled and Shaking: ...b..but I havvven't even asked you m....

SATAN: OOOH! I'M SOOO SORRY. WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU YOUR MAJESTY? WOULD YOU LIKE SOME COOKIES AND PUNCH? HOW ABOUT A LITTLE SOFT MUSIC AND A BACK-RUB? WELL? SPIT IT OUT!

Defeated: I...I...just...www...t (he crawls into the corner, clutching knees to his chest, crying).

******************************

Amidst the condescension as thick as old milk she managed to let me know that it was time for me to graduate, and I needed to line up three professors to write three different questions for me concerning an agreed upon topic for each. If I could do this in the next couple of weeks, I could knock the three-hour test out in May or early June.

Sounds easy, right?

Long story short, it took months and months for my professors to return enough phone calls/emails in succession to agree upon topics, though one gave me no more direction than, "I'll write you a Jane Austen question." (translated: "I will ask you something broad or obscure, critical or topical on any one or all of her six-novels and/or juvenilia....easy, right?) I have been studying off and on since June/July, and I finally got the big test scheduled for December 4th. For the past few weeks I have been in super-overdrive-intense-mode, studying night and day, becoming an expert in all things Austen, Czeslaw Milosz, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Monday before the test, I am ready.

I get home from on Monday, ready to rest, relax, get some rest before the test in the morning. I consider taking a run, but decide to check my email one last time before I head out the door. The time is 4:40. My inbox had a message from SATAN (a message written after 4:30, mind you), which stated that two of my professors had not delivered their questions to her, and I need to take care of this before my test in the morning.

Me: (after a string of expletives, yelling at my computer screen) "But I sent you a f***ing email two weeks ago asking if everything was set for my test!!! You told me everything was fine!!! Do you know how hard it was to get these professors to even acknowledge me?!?! It may take three weeks just to get them on the phone!!"

Long story shortened (I know, it's not short), I wrangled one professor's secretary into forcing her boss to submit the question overnight, but my Nietzsche guy, of course, left that country early that afternoon, and there would be no way to get in contact with her for days, weeks, months, decades....

SATAN's response: (coldly) You'll just have to find another professor to write a different question (ensuring another couple of months to the process).

I found the only decent human at that university that agreed to write a Nietzsche question for me, but, he has never taught The Anti-Christ, which was my major text. Instead, we agreed on similar parameters on two other Nietzsche texts that I am less versed in, but have read before. I have one-week to master these extra two texts and somehow not forget the others that I have studied so frantically. If I don't get to take it on next Wednesday, I have to wait until next semester to graduate, and that really, really screws up my plans for the Spring (more to come on that)

So, in summary, I did not take my test, I am still studying, and I am ready to jump off of the balcony.

Screw Teaching, I Wanna Drill For Oil

2007-11-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

My dad pointed me to a really interesting article in the StarTelegram from yesterday. It might have something to do with the fact that he is "prominently" featured in the story (I would pour it on, but, let us be honest, his one-line is one-line more than I have published in a newspaper). I generally get tired-head reading newspaper articles, because they are often written to engage those with a mental capacity of a fifth-grader, but this is a really well written article. I may be biased on account of it centering on my hometown, but I found it very enjoyable, and I thought you might as well.

Interesting

2007-11-29T06:42:00.000-08:00

I have students walking into class at this moment, so I do not have time to write, but I wanted to post this, because I missed it last night, but it is really interesting. Perhaps I will chime in later.

Soon

2007-11-28T09:53:00.000-08:00

It has been a few months since I have seen two things:

1. Julie reading something other than CPA Exam Test-Prep books, although she is constantly doing that. I believe we in the scientific community would call that thing in her hand in the picture on the right a novel.

2. Julie smiling while reading anything. I found this pic in my phone and I was shocked...it just looks out of place.

For those of you who do not know, Julie is finally taking her CPA Exam Thursday and Friday of this week. I have never, never in my life witnessed anyone studying in the manner that she has for this test. Apparently most consider themselves fortunate to pass 1 out of the 4 sections of the two-day affair on the first try, but, and no b.s. here, I really think she will pass all four. No one else does, but no one else is capable of this type of study. It is laughable when I moan about studying....but that does not seem to stop me.

Drop her a line of encouragement, because in just over two-days she will have completed the entirety of her scholastic career. Bring on the novels!!

World, Meet Preston. Preston, Meet World.

2007-11-27T08:47:00.001-08:00

It is entirely possible that I am breaking some sort of new-parent-code by publishing photos without fatherly permission, but, after spending twenty or more minutes this morning trying to transport a photo from my phone to my computer, I do not care. I have invested too much time now.

Brian and Stephanie, mostly the latter, delivered their boy last night, and Julie and I were lucky enough to get there just before he was born. We hung out until the wee hours outside of the baby aquarium and were able to watch the battery of abuse that is inflicted upon unsuspecting babies in the hours after they are born (I was never so thankful that man's brilliance and the advancement of modern technology allows for a less archaic form of taking one's temperature...Question: do babies not also have mouths?) I felt at times like we were watching footage of abuse in concentration camps. Julie was informed of a new way that I never want to be woken up from a nap - could we not nudge them awake before stabbing them with needles?...that just seems mean spirited.

All in all, Brian was beaming, strangely happy and serene for a guy with a degree in Philosophy.

Dead, but Aesthetically Pleasing

2007-11-25T18:03:00.000-08:00

I find a not-so-secret satisfaction in flipping the proverbial 'bird' at the new rage of "Green" living, and so rather than using, storing and reusing a tree year in, year out, we searched for a tree farm this morning and bought our first ever real-tree. [I really don't know if this is anti-green, but I like to think so, so please don't burst my bubble if I have it completely backwards].

On an unrelated note, where did I get this sweater?

On the morning of Thanksgiving, being that it was really cold by our Texas-standard, I opened the not often used sweater chest at the foot of the bed, and at the bottom I found a forgotten friend. I have not idea how long I have had this sweater, but it seems like I have had it since I moved out of my house after high school. In my memory it has always been old, and I am certain I did not buy it. It may have been given to me; I may have "borrowed" it from a friend; it may have been found in a parking lot in the same manner that at least one other favorite shirt was obtained. I debated it all morning, and I am truly stumped. Jim, Will, Chad...etc - is this yours?

P.S. - I won't give it back...I am serious, I love it.

Pride Comes Before the Bleeding Ankles

2007-11-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are consistent readers of this parade of arrogance I call my blog, you know that I generally give off the sense that I know vast amounts about most things (isn't that the point of blogging?), though in reality, I probably know very little about anything. I proved just that last week.

I have been something of an avid runner for better than ten-years, but I have been moderate in my distances until recently. I have always used three or four-miles as my standard, sometimes deviating by upping it a few miles, hardly ever exceeding seven at a time, usually running five or so days a week. This has kept me fit and supplemented basketball and other sports that I enjoy engaging in on a regular basis. This summer I became inspired to challenge myself. Although I had no particular goal in mind, I decided to start "training", upping my mileage and frequency considerably, pushing my body to see of what it might be capable. It has been exhilarating and rewarding, but my body has begun to ache like I had never felt before. Particularly, my back has been throbbing constantly, and I have been unable to sit, stand, sleep...comfortably for awhile.

As I bemoaned my condition to one of the other coaches at my school, he casually made some comment about the shoes I was wearing. Like a ton of bricks, it hit me; I had been running in flats that basically amount to being barefooted! Because I had kept my distances short, there was no problem, but the added pounding and lack of support/cushion was wreaking havoc on my lower back and legs. I am a moron!

Thursday night, Julie and I went to Luke's Locker, a runners-only store in our neighborhood, so that I might be fitted for proper shoes for the workouts in which I am engaging. I was like a kid waiting for Santa; I had never had a professional fit me for shoes. He watched me walk, he had me jog on a mini-track, and then he brought me several different types/brands of shoes and we went through the process of finding the perfect pair. It was really fun, and I ended up with exactly what I was looking for. Before leaving the store, he told me to take it easy for the first few runs, "give your shoes some time to break-in." I nodded, having no intention of following his sissy-advice.

Because we went to dinner, and I ate and drank too much to be useful for the rest of the evening, I waited until the next morning to take them for a test-drive, so to speak. I awoke early and said, "Shoeman be damned!, I am going to give these a thorough testing", and I took off for a lengthy morning jog. At about the farthest point from the apartment, the newness of the shoes became painfully apparent, and I the blisters on the backs of both of my heals were forming nicely. I pushed through despite the pain increasing, sure that it would stop before long, and, lo-and-behold, with several miles left, it subsided to a dull pain that was entirely manageable.

Quite proud of myself for not listening to the pansy at the shoe-store, I arrived back at the house, and slid my shoe off to find that my left sock was soaked thoroughly in blood, and the pristine whiteness of my shoe was replaced with a disturbing dark-red (the picture is a little dark to get the full, gruesome effect). To add insult to injury, Julie and I were in a hurry to get out of town that morning, so I quickly jumped into a warm shower...suffice it to say, I let out a string of very naughty things when the water hit the open wounds on the backs of my feet. Each shower since has been a not-so-gentle reminder that I may, and I stress MAY, not be the smartest man on the planet.

Painful lessoned learned.

Letter to Parents

2007-10-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

Live With Mild Discomfort! (I've calmed down a bit)

I Should Be Ashamed

2007-10-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

In my 'other' life, the one where I pretend not to be a skeptical-naturalist, I play the role of a....it pains me...Baptist. I grew up with this heritage, have a license to the ministry even, but, by and large, I have remained closeted in my affiliation for the past several years. I am outing myself, because I think I have hit an all-time low after last night.

Last year, despite heartfelt, though unvoiced objections to the contrary, Julie and I joined a Baptist church that needed a guitarist. I really had been itching to get back into a steady routine of playing, and I still have some notions of using one's gifts for the glory of God. I assumed this situation would allow me to kill those two birds with one guitar....uhhm, I mean, stone.
I have had my objections in the months since we walked down the aisle, shook hands with people who still do not even know our names, filled out cards insuring we will receive the monthly newsletter long after we leave the church, and helped perpetuate the extreeeemly questionable tradition of having an emotional-response-inducing "Invitation" at the end of a worship service, but none of my previously held-to qualms could compare with the moral dilemma I faced last night when I showed up to play for the third-night of our "ReNEWal" services.

First of all, allow me to translate for the majority of you who are not familiar with such a thing, because someone had to clue me in on what the hizzy a Renewal service is in the first place. Apparently, they are something very, very, very similar to what used to be called a Revival......only waaaaay coooooler......(skater-voice - "revivals are for your grandpa, grandpa. get with the times.....we don't revive, we renew....it's different, man").

The previous two nights were not any different from a normal service, and, granted, there were moments that made you cringe, but this is an every-Sunday occurrence, and I have grown accustomed to mild outrage or shame; last night was different. Speaking to a packed, packed beyond capacity in a church that usually draws well under half enough people to fill the two-story worship center, was none other than Don Piper (I did not know who he was either, but I thought wording it as such would add a dramatic flair). Piper wrote a book (above) that details his experience during his 90-minute 'death'. He was declared dead at the scene of a rural car accident, but he was miraculously revived over an hour later through what he attributes to an act of God, sending him back to preach his message to the masses (and he has - I believe he said over 2.4 million copies have sold, and it has apparently become a staple on the New York Times Bestseller List).

I take no potshots at the amazing healing that took place both immediately and long-after the wreck, and I think that this testimony alone would be astounding, but I found myself throughout the entirety of the 'sermon' questioning whether a.) he had some sort of unconscious dream sequence, and he really believes that what he saw was Heaven, or, b.) he is the greatest charlatan on the planet, a fraud. I waffled between these two extremes, because at times he was so very likable, deceptively engaging, but other times he was so vague in his descriptions, using smoke-and-mirrors tactics to distract from the topic at hand, fueling my suspicions.

By the time he was finished, I was nauseous, and I have never felt such a sense of shame as I did walking back onto that stage to play the closing songs. People were weeping, people were swooning, and I was a contributing member of this parade of dishonesty. I should have left; I should have at least stayed in my seat, not standing as a figure of support for such a charade. I am two-faced.

ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!

2007-10-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

Not two days after the aforementioned letter went out to every parent in school, I received a fresh barrage of parents doing exactly that which the principal addressed/pleaded with them in the lengthy, heart-felt correspondence. Yes, my tongueless-brother, there has been, and, apparently, continues to be a rash of parents rescuing their children.

I am not one to stand on the high-horse of my moral superiority and claim the divine-right-of-teachers that many of my colleagues raise like a banner, a superiority based on God knows what, but, somehow, a position elevated above the parents. They know what is right for someone else's kid, because they have experience, love, objectivity, faith...etc, all rolled into one. I know that I know nothing about kids - I do not want to; I do not treat them like I 'love' them, because I don't; I do not view them from a parents perspective - and, maybe (let us be honest - hopefully), this will never change. Can one not educate apart from love and tenderness? I think back to high school; Mr. Choate, did he 'love' me? - No!, I do not think he even knew my name. I respected him and learned from him because he brought his subjects to life by being excited by it. I, too, love the subject I teach. Where I to stay at home all day, I would still study literature, but, this way, people are forced to listen to me talk about it.

Can one educate while loving kids? - certainly, but I think it makes their job more difficult, not less. I have no problem, when a student is caught cheating (as was the case with one of my parent meetings), I do not have to debate whether enforcing the rules is the right thing to do for THAT person; I get the luxury of being black and white. How the hell else will they learn responsibility and consequences if they are never punished for what they do? I balk at anyone, and there have been/will be plenty who defy this position, who claims that a lack of affectionate regard for a student is synonymous with being disinterested in their education - I call b-llsh-t on that. I think either way can, possibly, maybe, be effective, though I am not sure I could go as far as to say equally, but how does 'love' shielding from the realities of consequences help them more than just for that moment? Yes, it is painful to make mistakes; yes, there will be repercussions that may preclude one from one privilege or another; yes, certain things could be overlooked, there could be do-overs and makeups, but is this BEST?

Were I to stand of previously denied "high horse", perhaps I would say....

"Stop coddling your children, you're making them weak - they should/will have the crap beaten out of them by life at some point because of you. Stop prolonging the inevitability of failure."

"Get an effing job! If you have nothing better to do than schedule meeting after meeting with me every time your daughter gets looked at wrong, you are not busy enough."

"Yes, I am young; yes, I am arrogant; yes, I am childless, but....I know this pains you, so I will wait a moment..... I still might be qualified, even MORE qualified than you, to make certain educational decisions. Sucks, doesn't it?"

"It might be time to come to grips with the fact that your child is not as smart or perfect as you thought. I hate to break it to you, but you birthed a human being, not a sainted-robot."

"No matter how hard your will it, your child's successes in life will not make up for your failures."

"Yes, you are right in your thinking - You indeed have more money in your wallet than I will make this entire year, but do you think your little power-play works to your advantage? Reminding me how little I get paid only further enforces the fact that, truly, I am not compensated enough to put out the kind of effort that is required to deal with you."

"Let's use some logic; who do you think is more likely to lie to you, the teacher who could care less whether you agree or disagree with him, who is an ADULT, or your child, who fears the heavy hand of mom, a hand obviously, inclined towards overreaction, which is only further proven by the fact that you rushed to the school to bitch at me."

"Although it would pain me dearly, please, oh please, follow through on your threats. You are right, you pay too much money at this school to 'put up with this'. Just on the principal of things, I would pull your child from this hell-hole. It will be difficult, undoubtedly we will have a day of mourning, but I am sure we will find a way to muddle through with one less a--hole taking up every off-period that I have each week."

....but, like I said before, I would never elevate myself in such a way.

The Change

2007-10-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

I was sent a letter from my principal this morning, a letter that will soon be sent to the parents of my school. To be honest, I do not always/usually/ever read these emails, because I would have no time for important school matters (like blogging), but this one was interesting. He poses an interesting question for debate....and then he rambles on a bit, but let me reproduce for you the questioning part.

When did things change? What happened? When did the paradigm shift occur where everything is seen through the child’s perspective, rather than the adult’s perspective? My Mom would never have attacked a teacher (or coach) because of my skewed viewpoint. She would always support the teacher first and work with me to see the bigger picture. She was very thankful to have me in a Christian environment with teachers who loved and cared for me, and held me accountable to high standards for my behavior and academic growth. Unless a teacher was doing something immoral, illegal, or contrary to Christian doctrine she never questioned a teacher’s integrity or their ability to do their job.

PARENTS : Do not rescue your children from adversity! Adversity is the vehicle through which Faith and Character are developed. Please let me repeat that…Adversity is the vehicle through which FAITH and CHARACTER are developed. If this statement is true, why would we try to rescue our children from adversity? By all means support them and love them through tough times, but DON’T RESCUE THEM!

I am not sure I have the time or energy right now to debate this, but maybe you do. If so, here is your forum.

Four Mai Mom

2007-10-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

This wekend eye had the wonderfull oportunity to head down to Waco and spend a few ours wiht my Mom before taking in POP's cross-country meet down the road from her neu place. I dont get thee chance to sea her very often, so little bit of thyme we wre able to sit on the porch and talk was very nyce. She even made me a peanut buter sandwhich for the road, whcih ai am convinced always tasetes better than thos aye make myselff.

It wus gud to see you Mom,. Bye the way, I dopple checkked the gramar and spelling just for yew this time.

The Smoking Tree

2007-10-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

My MacBook-photo-taking-skills are really, really poor, as evidenced to the right, but trust me, this picture does not do the view from my desk justice. Quickly, the 'smoking tree' has become one of my favorite features of the surrounding office-park landscape that is my one refuge from the confines of my hospital-florescent lighted, desk cluttered, child smelling cell, room 128. Several times a day the lonely tree to the far right is inhabited by the social outcasts that still hang on the sole bastion of their youth: tobacco.

I love watching these rebels, as they puff their cool-sticks, flipping the proverbial 'bird' at the rest of the Atkins-infested, trans-fat-depleted, pilate-yoga-ites, slaves cowering before the Surgeon General's scare tactics; I respect them; I envy them. I often want to point them out to my students, but this view is mine, and I do not think they would appreciate it. These filtered-cavaliers are evidence that high school never ends. The cool kids are still the cool kids, undoubtedly sitting around the latte machine inside the air conditioned office, maybe eating a Power Bar to sustain them between their lunch of a single piece of toast and their dinner of low-carb beer: "I don't want to lose my abs". The nerds stay inside the safe confines of their cubicles, working through lunch, willing themselves towards success between every quick bite. The smokers, they are still smokers; only, instead of hiding behind the school, or lurking behind the bed of the tallest truck in the parking lot, they are forcibly exiled to the tree farthest from the building, a safe distance from the public at large, zoo animals on display.

Why, societally, have we turned so vehemently against smoking? The health risk? Obesity is at an all time high in this country, but we claim to be health conscious? Does the lady eating the supersized cheeseburger meal while slurping down soda number three for the day really need to concern herself with the safety of her precious lungs? Is there some sort of body-math that I am not understanding? - heart, kidneys, colon are one thing, but lung trumps them all.
Is it the annoyance of the smell? God forbid one should be discomforted by the personal choice of another. If we are going to adopt this stance of eliminating elements of society based upon the disruptive effects on others, let me add to the list: no more public cell phone use, Doritos must be eaten outside of confined spaces, children shall hereafter be muzzled in movie theatres, airplanes....public, dogs must be euthanized, Ellen and Oprah must be eliminated by any means necessary, and, perhaps most importantly, rubberneckers on the freeway are subject to the same fate as Oprah and the canines.

One day I am going to risk the barbed wire and join my fellow revolutionaries. Proudly we'll stand (or, more than likely sit, because our lung capacity won't be able to handle too much movement), we will light up our leaf-filled torches ala Lady Liberty, and we will celebrate the freedom of poisoning ourselves to our heart's content (or discontent - depends if you are asking me or my heart, I guess), and we will boldly proclaim, "You can send us to the edge of the parking lot, you can stare at us like monkeys in a cage, you can sneer, you can take our dignity.....but you will never, cough, cough, take our freedom!!! cough, cough....

Prodigal Son

2007-10-05T06:58:00.001-07:00

It is something like Paul (or was it Saul). The scales are falling from my eyes, and, though it seems like ages since I felt alive in this way, I think it is an awakening.

In thinking back over the past several months, I know some of my friends and family have either expressed to me or to those close to me (that's right, word travels) the fear that I was wavering in my faith, that I was losing my hope and peace. I have to be honest with the blogger-world (I believe I am up to 3 readers now....scoreboard!), I have been faithless these last few months, floundering in a sea of uncertainty and even standing on the precipice of despair at times. I have hoped that this was not permanent, that I would "wake up" at some point, disentangling myself from the thorny, confining vines that have choked my joy.

Let me be clear, triumphantly clear, my hope is renewed; my cup is overflowing with the promise of a future that can only come from one source.....the Mavs!

Julie and I took advantage of living practically next-door to the AAC and went to the Blue/White scrimmage last night, and I am once again ready to pledge my allegiance to the boys from D-town. Things just feel better when basketball season begins.....like a warm blanket or a good glass of wine.

I Didn't Know Mel Gibson was an Architect

2007-09-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Apparently the U.S. government hates Jews, not just Iraqi's.

Do you think someone is losing their job over this?

Making a Difference One Mind at a Time

2007-09-20T13:49:00.001-07:00

Just when you are feeling very high-minded, sure that the brilliance you are spouting about the intricacies of the political/moral struggles that underly Lord of the Flies, sure that at any moment the their heads will explode from the knowledge overload, that they might fall on the floor convulsing in fits of hysteria over the depth of understanding that has been awakened in them.....you find out that, rather than listening to a damn word you said, they were pretending to pay attention to you in order to sketch you.

I'd be mad, but I think she did a fair job.

"The only problem with it, Mr. Stone," observed one of he classmates, "is we've never seen you smile."

Both of them deserve A's!

What a F%*#ing Rockstar!

2007-09-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

Simply put, I'm impressed!

Catharsis or Self-Indulgence

2007-09-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

Working in a high school is filled with a variety or untold strangenesses (like that word?.....I'm an English teacher and can't manage to use the language with any expertise this morning)....very vague statement, I know....I'm lazy - perhaps the most disturbing of daily mind-events/journeys is the stroll, no, make that: violent dragging, through the muck of one's own adolescence. For one who could not wait until high school ended, longing basically everyday to stop what I realized even then was some sort of strange petri-dish-filled-with-combustibles social-experiment that, although all must endure it, and there should be some sort of unification in shared experience, turns out to be shared isolation on an island surrounded by a the sea of hormones and budding, awkward adulthood, the idea of spending everyday back in high school is tantamount to God kicking-back in his golden easy-chair and enjoying the show in the same manner one cracks open a beer and watches the train-wreck that is the delusional teens being skewered on American Idol. - it must be fun.

Reflecting on my unique position of going back to high school as an adult, I reflected last night on what, other than a widening age-gap, truly separates me from the previous me that was indeed no different than these youths that I am currently instructing. In most ways, the jump from childhood to authority-figure, it makes me chuckle to even say such a thing to categorize myself, has been seamless - I do not feel terribly different, but I pinpointed something particular to my adult experience that is a drastic departure from the angst-ridden-pseudo-rebel I played on the television drama of my teens: numbness.

I am not sure if it is the chemical makeup of a maturing body/mind that accounts for it, or the lack of responsibility (I used to hate when adults told me, "You think you have stuff to worry about now, but just wait....") that does not bog the teen mind down with the mundane peculiarities of human existence, but there was decidedly more passion ten-years ago than there is today. Every idea was going to change the world, love was urgent, feelings/emotions were paramount - now their just tiring. It is rational, reasonable to take into account consequences in your actions, that things maybe can wait until tomorrow, that an argument with your love interest does not begin or end the world, and that, no, you are not the most important entity in the universe, but the young mind is oblivious to such things. It is the cosmic joke to end all jokes that when you are most motivated and easily captured by an idea, you are in the least likeliest position to achieve objectives of your entire life, and by the time freedom and independence find you, you will become another stagnant member of the machine that is adulthood and no longer feel compelled to do those things for which you might have held so much passion for previously.

These kids are like caged animals at the zoo; they know not that they are being observed, nor do they care if they are cognizant of being on display for we onlookers; their oblivion and overall feeling of self-importance makes them the perfect specimens for glimpsing our previous selves. Like a movie screen, where actors do not take the audience into account, choosing rather to play parts knowing all the while that they will be viewed eventually, one is allowed to lose oneself in the unfolding lives of those one has no more connection with than any other stranger, but somehow you cannot help seeing something, feeling something long forgotten. Too much time in this vortex of past emotion is probably damaging to one's mental health, leading perhaps to insanity or, worse yet, novel-writing, but for momentary glimpses it is an experience worth your thought-life.

My Brother Jack

2007-09-10T06:11:00.001-07:00

The past several years have been a repetition of the same movie script over and over again.

(bearded stranger walks in silently, taking a seat at the crowded table)

Random Teacher 1: "Hi, my name is ________ (usually Linda, sometimes Nancy, always a woman, always far too excited for an 8:00 am orientation)! It is so nice to meet you! I teach 3rd grade....

(bearded stranger stops listening)

Random Teacher 2: (interrupting RT 1) So, where did you come from?

(mindless conversation about previous teaching experience and education ensues)

After several conversations that go no further than this, invariably the discussion turns to family. I talk a bit about my wife, regurgitating the same spiel that was told at the last orientation, and the same one that will be told countless times more in the coming weeks...."accountant"...."Arlington"....."3 years"......"met in Denton".....etc. In short, wife, mother, father, sister, brother, et al, are placed in their proper categories by which the small solar system in which I orbit will know of their existence. (fast forward six months: "Oh, your sister....the baker, right?) It is the way the universe is structured, I did not construct it, but I have nonetheless embraced it wholeheartedly and abide by the rules of depersonalizingly classifying those closest to those I feign closeness with in order to further feign knowledge of those I indeed have never and will never meet or be close to.

I take special pleasure in the categorization of my brother. It is both simple and privately entertaining.

RT 4000: "Tell me about your brother."

Bearded: (smiling, very satisfied with his impending cleverness) "Oh, Jim? He's Jack Kerouac."

Indeed, my brother is straight out of On the Road (though he refuses to read it). It has been a few years since I read about the cross-country odyssey that sparked and encapsulated a whole generation of beats' and spawned countless generations of pseudo-'nicks walking aimlessly hoping for direction, catharsis or purpose. The beauty of Road, though, as best this weak memory can recall, is that Jack was not on some hippie-esque crusade of self discovery, looking for some sort of higher purpose in his wanderings. No, he just went. The story of Road is indeed filled with moments of self-awareness and generations since have not wrongly found deeper meaning in the journey, but, like all valuable lessons, these grew organically out of experience not focused on finding "experiences"

Jim, as far as I am aware, has no great aim in his years of trekking from here to there. He is not setting records, not peddling a message, he just wanders. Hedonistic? - maybe. Selfish? - could be. Waste? - not for a second. Jim/Jack are the segment of the population that cannot be more than a minor minority, because were they the majority the world might cease functioning, but they are an important minority. Important? - their importance in deviating from the norm both gives the rest of us dreams of escape, and supplies us with tales unknown to us (something like Odysseus' Cyclops' island), but might even inspire us in ways that the book written by a stock broker about a vacation to Maui could not.

So, on your birthday, Jim. Cheers!

2 Down, a Mere 34 to Go

2007-09-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

Break out the champagne, light up the cigars (or smoking substance of your choice...as long as it's under 4 oz...new TX law...look it up), we've nearly made it through a second consecutive week of real work. I realize it's only Thursday, and I grant you that we had Monday off, but I will take my small victories as they come to me. I have some time at my desk before Parent-Nite gets up and rolling, and so I thought I would attempt to lay aside the cynicism (at least as much as possible) and give an update on life at POPCS (long acronym, right?)

Ties - I was disturbed the day before school started when I was informed for the first time that ties were mandatory every school day, save a few special days here and there. I have never worked anywhere that had a dress code that strict, and the rebellious-teen that I was began to rise from the dead: "You can't make me do that, man (why does my angst-filled-teen voice sound stoned in my mind?)", but two weeks in.......nooooooot soooo baaaad. I can handle it. There's actually something official-feeling about the whole thing.

Where Have All the Bastards Gone - I almost hate the jump the gun on this one....really, I am becoming nervous even as I type, but the kids here are....dare I say it....decent humans. There are a handful of squirrelly kids, but that's just it, they are kids. I expect a modicum of deviance and rebellion, I have never asked for anything approaching perfection, but these kids only serve to illustrate that I might not have been crazy about hating so many of those Alban-kids. Compared with last year, these kids are angels....it's like night and day. I have many, many more students this year, and I don't know even 1/8 of their names (I know how to point and say, "You", though), but already I like them, and they seem to have at least respect for me. This is subject to change, and I won't be held to this stance, but for now they give me hope of lasting in this profession for more than a year or two.

Fitness - Generally I have observed at most schools, offices...etc that they are filled with flabby people making it some sort of obesity-loves-company mission to convert everyone else to their club by deriding any attempts at healthy eating or exercise, claiming such things as unnatural or the practices of fanatics. Such is not the case at POP. Much to my pleasant surprise, there is a group of men that play basketball three mornings a week, competitive basketball at that, and the basketball coach does an open gym on Saturday mornings a few times a month. Aside from that, there is a general attitude/expectation that people work out or watch what they eat; it is far from fanatical, and we still go grab burgers or mexican food, but there something different that I cannot quite pinpoint.

Controlled Autonomy - To put it bluntly, St. Alban's was a free-for-all. I loved my principal, and she was nothing if not supportive and hardworking, but I have already had more input and questions concerning the details of my curriculum (they still let me write my own) than I probably did all of last year. I had no problem with the way I was allowed to wind-up and go last year, but it is comforting that there are hand-brakes built into the POP system to keep me from getting too far off track.

All in all, it seems like I am working at more of a 'school' than I ever have. If I have to work, and I guess I do, this is not such a bad place.

8 Minutes....

2007-08-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

I have exactly 8 minutes until 'they' arrive, the 'they' that have been plaguing my last moments of freedom this past week. They will be loud, and I love the quietness surrounding me right now; they will be full of questions, and I have relished a summer without being an authority on anything other than what is a quality cigar or pub. No, they will be interested in due dates for homework, the proper procedure for going to the restroom (hopefully they have the mechanics down by the time they get to my class, but I find that bathroom breaks are a major source of intrigue for school children), ....

3 minutes....I'm a slow thinker. I'm reminded of Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, because it closes brilliantly with the last 24 hours of his life prior to be taken by the devil being swept away in the proverbial "blink of an eye". He keeps trying to philosophize his situation, thinking it through, and the time keeps slipping through his fingers, and finally....

....there's the bell (seriously, I could not have timed that better). In the spirit of Faustus, it would be unfair for me to complete my thoughts right now; instead, I will sign off and do my job...similar to being plunged into Hell, right?

Love/Hate

2007-08-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

I am involved once again in the most fickle of affairs with the angry, vindictive lover, school. As of last week I was no longer an aimlessly wandering barfly, walking from bar to cafe, movie theatre to bookstore ad nauseum; no, now I am a gainfully employed barfly, wandering from cafe to school to bar..etc (the bar tabs will inevitably rise as the children begin filtering back in next week....I am slowly building stil). Last week marked the beginning of another school year, and in the midst of meeting after mind-numbing meeting, I realized two distinct things: I love teaching, and I hate being a teacher.

I was reminded of the former last week when I was privileged to get to lecture for a summer class that had been studying Jane Austen for the summer. They all mutually hated Emma, which I actually loved, and word spread that I might be able to turn their young minds in favor of it, and so the call was made early in June for a class that I was not going to teach until late July (bad idea). I got a call from Brian the day before asking a question about the lecture, and suddenly I was slammed to the floor by a pile of bricks. I had completely forgotten about that commitment. My first several thoughts were clever ways to avoid the engagement, but honesty and integrity won the day, and so I spent until the wee hours of the morning studying up on the book and criticisms, and I went to class the next day and waxed eloquent for 1 1/2 hours....and I loved it! I forget what a rush it is to teach, and it sometimes takes something like that to remind me.

Fresh off my victory with the Janeites, I went to my first day of work at Prince of Peace only to quickly discover how much I hate being a teacher. Allow me to be blunt: I do not really like kids; when they are young, they are sticky, smelly and otherwise gross, and by the time I get to them in high school, they are still smelly, but now there is a much more pungent odor of smart-a** that overrides all other senses. I love education, just not kids, and this apparently makes me a bad teacher....I could only be more of a social outcast at a Christian school if I engaged in dogfighting while hating kids.

Secondly, I do not give two damns how many times my students a) go to the bathroom, b) chew gum c)show up late d) fail to turn in assignments e) like me d) tell their parents how mean I am e) hold hands in the hallway f) curse g) write perverse poetry h) write notes, and the myriad of other pressing concerns that keep us in hours of meetings everyday. I tried; I came in the first day determined to care....but I don't, I just don't.

Teachers are a different breed of human, and I am pretty sure that I am not one of them....although I still lay claims to the "human" part. Regardless, that is what I am, in title, if nothing else. So, let us iron our Winnie the Pooh sweaters, gather our Garfield posters to display proudly on our pristine bulletin boards (to be changed monthly, mind you), brush up on our cliche's (after all, there is no I in TEAM), and get ready for those little "blessings" to come bounding through the door in a week. If nothing else, we have summer to look forward to...and not many professions can say that.

Party Pics

2007-08-16T18:02:00.001-07:00

Although I gave her a hard time for it, Debby did take some good pics of the party; I think she captured to night well. Enjoy.

Can You Tell?

2007-08-14T05:02:00.001-07:00

Do you notice anything different about us? Look closely....closer....no, not that, but good guess.

Perhaps you might look just below the back of our necks...our shoulders. If you observe closely you might notice that the giant weight of homeownership has been removed as of yesterday! That's right, WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!

It was something of a whirlwind courtship with the current owners of 1221 Moore Ter., because we went from no leads to a contract in a matter of a few days....and then they wanted to close within a week. We couldn't have been more thrilled to rush through the process.

So, raise your glasses and toast with us to no longer living in Arlington.....cheers!

A Letter

2007-08-10T23:06:00.001-07:00

Dear Mr. University President,

I recognize that you are basically the CEO of a large, state-funded corporation, that the comfort, or perhaps more apropos, discomfort, of we measly commoners is of no more import to your day than an approval rating or war-status-report is to 'Dubya', but, if I might, I have some suggestions to make the graduation ceremony a bit more palatable for all involved.

First, and, to be honest, foremost, is it necessary to have graduate students share the ceremony with undergrads? Sure, time and space are undoubtedly at a premium in the bustling early weekends of August, though you do a nice job of disguising your institution as an old-West ghost-town, but do you think we might can recognize the obvious? Undergrads and their parents/friends/frat-brothers/... apparently have the social graces of tractor-pull attendees...only these people are already on edge because they are wearing the three sizes too small 'funeral suit' that they haven't touched since Peepaw's unfortunate tractor accident. The grad-students have spent the last three years working, raising their families, contributing to society, all the while studying every spare moment of their busy days, and they and their families want a moment of reflection and enjoyment without a damn air horn going off every five minutes.

While we're there; airhorns? really? In 2007 we have not moved past airhorns? Ha, ha, it's funny to be an asshole, ha, ha.

Secondly, are there no scholars left to give the type of rousing, inspiring speech that will be written up in future anthologies? Sure, I appreciate the guy who got his Bachelor's 40 years before and hasn't cracked a book since, who doesn't, but one can only put up with 20 or so minutes of self-deprecating humor absent any true sentiment before one demands at least of modicum of substance. What message are you sending to your graduates: "All these years of hard work, they mean nothing, because 40 years from now you will neither remember anything you studied nor have anything original or inspiring to impart to the future generations...but, if you are lucky, you get to wear a cool robe and stutter into a microphone in front of a crow of people who wish you wouldn't...cheers.

Thirdly, two words (or one hyphenated word): Pronunciation (-) Guide. Can there be a more deflating moment for a graduate and his/her family after years of waiting for this moment than a Texan butchering your surname, stammering, and then finally rushing through the pronunciation again as if saying it faster will cause people not to know that you don't know how to say it?

Finally, two more words: Open Bar...I might even learn to appreciate the airhorns then.

Proof of Life

2007-08-08T21:20:00.000-07:00

*******Let me go ahead and give a WARNING here. I realize that many of you (I suppose 'many' is a pretty subjective term, because it can mean, in this case, the majority of a small audience) are good-hearted, non-cynics, and this post may not be for you, though it is not a bad as some others have been*******

Thanks to the overacting smugness of Russell Crowe in the early 00's, I found out what a 'proof of life' is. Since I trust anything that is broadcast through electric visual media (have they given us any reason not to....need I remind you of The Passion of the Christ...see, they're all Christians), I KNOW that a proof of life is what those paying a ransom demand in order to prove their kidnapped associate is still alive and that money therefore needs to be paid. It also has something to do with a Roman soldier and a schizophrenic mathematician, but I think those were only minor points.

Why the sudden interest in a movie that I have not seen in several years? - I experienced something very similar yesterday, and I wanted to scoreboard my brother and sister in the process. Yesterday, via phoneline, I was given definitive proof that Dorothy Stone (aka: Grandma) still exists.

The conversation, if you can call it that, went something like this:

*******Sidenote: I archive this conversation, not only for the edification of the reading public, but also as some sort of historical document. I have not spoken with this woman this century, nor do I anticipate any of us will ever, in some sort of Saschwatch/Elvis mysterious sightings-sense, track her down again, so, like the recording of Neil Armstrong's steps on the moon, a once in a lifetime experience, I render to you my first conversation with 'Grandma' since childhood.

*******In the spirit of Russell Crowe, there might be slight embellishments for dramatic effect.

Dad: "Do you want to talk to Grandma?"

Me: "Who's that?" - (ok, I wasn't that rude) "I don't care....not really....what would I say to her....probably better that I don't...."

Dad: "Ok, here she is."

Me: "Dad!, did you not hear...Hi, Grandma."

Elvis: "Hi, Marshall...um, Mitchell...oh, Mandible...Grandson!"

Me: "How have the 90's and 00's been treating you?"

Jimmy Hoffa: "We are good, I don't think I would have recognized your voice."

Me: "Ha, ha... (awkward silence....getting worse....the laughter is fading....what do I do?!)

Loch Ness: "I guess you probably wouldn't have recognized mine either....ha, ha"

Me: "Ha, ha....(trailing off....almost ready to feint phone static to end this)"

(imagine giggles and stutters so palpable and thick that I am literally swatting uncomfortableness out of the air like mosquitoes)

Me: "I was hoping we might reconnect....maybe this conversation could be the bridge that reunites our side of the family...we are, after all, family, and isn't that more important than any grudges of misunderstandings that may have arisen over the years. We lov..."

George Bush's Credibility: "...Good to talk to you too.....ha, ha.....here's your dad...bye, now."

-------------------

So let's recap the scores for the past decade or so:

Abbey: 0

Jim: -800....drum-stealing bastard.

Michael: 1 - winner and new champion!

Summer (2)

2007-08-06T06:05:00.002-07:00

After the Deutschkurse in June, I entered what can only be described as 'Nerd-Summer-Camp'. Tucked into the heart of Uptown there is a nondescript old house with a wrap-around porch, surrounded by a blanket of green-leafed trees and cats (it seems like there are thousands, though I think in actuality there are only five). A quarter-century ago Dr. Louise Cowan and her late husband began this odyssey that has been devoted to both the arts in Dallas, and, each summer, for training and revitalizing teachers.

For three weeks, we read and immersed ourselves in every particular of a dozen novels or dramas, we wrote, and we were able to 'sit at the feet' of some truly brilliant minds that sought to challenge us, to push us. It was fantastic, and after the dust had settled, and after everyone was back home (though still working on their final papers, which were due two weeks later), you had that same weird youth-camp feeling; you missed seeing people who were isolated in the same pseudo-reality that is the bubble of the Summer Institute, and, in a drastic departure from youth-camp, you missed the food (they fed us like kings for three weeks...had I not been on a strict running regimen I would have gained 400 lbs.....that's right, 400).

I have since dried my "on fire for Lit." eyes, though "I know, I just know that I'm going to be different now...I'm going to tell everyone about Aeschylus and never be ashamed...", and I have finished my research paper, and now it is time to get into school-mode. I have not even gotten to the move yet, but that will have to wait until later. I have to run; it is oh-so-tough to keep up with a teacher's schedule in the summertime.

michael

Our New View

2007-08-05T04:36:00.002-07:00

It is morning, I need to get on the road to church, but, as I have been reminded by the two or so people that still check this thing (b0th, consequently, share my DNA) that I have not posted since Father's Day. I checked...they are right. I am still not sure I have anything of substance to write, but I thought I would share a picture or two. Here's the view from our balcony this morning....it's a nice place to sit and type....it will be a sauna by 10 this morning.

This summer has been interesting, to say the least. Whereas last summer I fled the country, seeking asylum in the friendly confines of every Suude-Muenchen bar I could find...living the easy life...going to class a few hours a day and then watching Weltmeisterschaft (World Cup)
all night in one of the the many previously mentioned bars, this summer has been all about toil. I suppose it is good for the soul not to be a wanderer, even while on summer vacation (though I think another wandering soul who shares my DNA might disagree......I admit it, by the way, I have no idea if relatives really share DNA, but that cliche sounded good twice in this post).

June was devoted to the study of Deutsch. A new professor of German at UD let me sit in on the first month of an intensive German course in order for me to brush up and find that which I had lost in the last 12 months of little German study. It was a really good, really tough time. Not that most of it hasn't already been forgotten in the last 30 days, but hopefully enough to pass a written exam later has stuck.

I am going to be late for church, so I better go. I'll finish my "summer in review" later....tell your friends, it is what we have all been waiting for.

My Dad

2007-06-15T20:18:00.001-07:00

You are not likely to find him hunched over a book this Father's Day, nor will you catch him sitting in his chair watching golf or whatever sport is being futilely paraded across the television this Sunday on account of all of the real sports being done until August. He will more than likely not sleep in, basking in the accomplishment of a week survived and allowing his body a brief respite from the toil of another 80 hour work-week; no, the smart money will be on him rising before the sun, shoveling muck from the car-wash, doing those things at his place of business that just cannot be fit into the brief confines of 6 full days of weekly work, or cooking 'M' or 'T' shaped pancakes for the kids, who will undoubtedly be up long before expected. Father's Day will most assuredly resemble 'Sunday', plain and simple Sunday for my dad.

I had the distinct pleasure , and I use no hyperbole of expression in saying so, a few weeks ago of witnessing once again this man in his element, a trip long overdue. Like many, if not most of the defining moments of my young adulthood, this one came unexpectedly. The plan was simple, selfish and graciously thwarted. With Julie and I moving to a much smaller living space, there came the dilemma of how best to fit hundreds of books without creating floor to ceiling chaos. In a condensed version, Dad and I decided to build 9 ft. bookshelves to cover the longest wall in the apartment. He is a woodworking extraordinare, and I am a willing participant (seeing as I am for all intensive purposes jobless for a few months), so we designed an elaborate and top-rate shelving system, complete with a rolling ladder. I trekked to my hometown to build this monstrosity, but I left with something else entirely.

It took no more than a few hours to remember what Dad's life consists of: busyness. He rises early, works on his feet all day long, juggles wife's, kids', employees' and customers' needs for 10 hours, coaches 7-8 year-old baseball, though one can hardly call what I witnessed at those games baseball - let's just call it hot-kids-running-around-with-gloves-and-bats, to be more accurate - and then he goes home long enough to eat dinner, read to the kids and go to bed, preparing himself for the eternal recurrence of the same on the proceeding day.

Mercifully for him, the project did not come to fruition; it was abandoned two days and a mere three or four hours in, and I left disappointed, not in the lack of shelves constructed, but in my forgetfulness. Somewhere in the shuffle of schools and jobs, study and toil, family and far too much 'me', I failed to remember where I came from and whom I am to thank for who making me, me (though I question whether he would want credit most days).

I generally loathe sentiment, it all comes out much too trite, but tonight is the exception to my rule.

This Father's Day, I remember:

...that he has worked everyday of my life the same as he does now, so that I might be afforded the opportunities to succeed that have been given to me.

...that he let me fail just enough to allow for growth, but not so much that I might not recover.

...that he taught me to throw a ball and run like a boy, which has saved me from much embarrassment (now it's time to get to work on Mickey).

...that he bought me my first guitar and let me crank it up at all hours of the day and night.

...that he made me get up on Saturday mornings to pick up trash outside of the store (torturous, but I learned the value of work on those hot days).

...that, though he knew we would regret it, bought an old Mustang anyway, because I had my heart set on it.

...that he never took a drink of alcohol nor cursed in my presence...I cannot say the same.

...that he never made me cut my hair, change my clothes or take out my piercings - he knew how stupid they looked, and I guess he trusted I would too one day....and I do.

...that he has never made a derogatory comment about my mother to me.

...that he sat across from me in his truck in Denton and let me cry my eyes out...and that he cried too.

...that it only took one punch from his giant hands to stop me from sparring with him.

...that he used to fall asleep while running sound at church, but to this day won't admit it.

...that, in my last three years of living with him, we must have eaten meatloaf 1 billion times.

...that he gave me the greatest gift of all: the love of chips and hot sauce.

...that he could-not/cannot sit down in his recliner without falling asleep.

...that he embraced my wife as family from the first time he met her.

...that, despite the demands of his business, he never missed a football game I played in...and he would not let me leave his side until we talked about what went right and wrong in the game...man, I hated that.

...that he disregarded maintenance of his truck, even those radical things like changing the oil, choosing rather to run one into the ground, then get another.

...that he instinctively rubs the back of his neck when angry or frustrated, as if God were allowing those in his path a bright neon sign, reading: Run!! - this trait is apparently hereditary, because it has begun to manifest itself in me as of late...comical, at the least.

...that he defined in a million ways for 27 years what a father is.

Thank you, Dad, I love you.

As If I Needed It

2007-05-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

I was reminded last night, yet again, why I married the right girl (I talk as if there were a multitude waiting in the wings in a Bachelor-esque rose ceremony...let us face it, I am lucky she was a. visually and/or b. mentally impaired at the time of our engagement).

Last night, the evening was winding down. She had been involved in a hard day of ridding the world of its tax related problems, probably adding and subtracting numbers, maybe even multiplying and dividing, them like a superhero, and I of course, basking in the glory of my lowly profession had read the final 200 pages of Moby Dick, read the first 50 pages of Beloved, run 7 miles and had 3 or 4 (who's counting) pints of beer at my new favorite watering hole, The Ginger Man (why would anyone do anything other than teach...this is my life for several months each year.....today, another 50 pages of reading, a couple of hours of cell0/guitar practice, and, yes, 2-3 more pints at the newly discovered J. Gilligan's). She was unwinding from a day of what I perceive to be real work, I was basking in the glow of the general haze of pain medication (yes, it was prescribed) and the aforementioned beers while watching, much to my dismay, the Spurs manhandle the Jazz when I heard a chuckle. I look over, and what do I see? - my girly accountant is avidly reading non other than the scholarly journal known as Sports Illustrated! She spent the next 15 minutes filling me in on the articles that I had yet to read...she was like a sports encyclopedia.

I am not a magazine guy. If I am going to read, it will be book or a short story, and if I am looking for soft entertainment, I will more than likely watch television, but Julie's parents bought me a subscription to the previously named sports publication at Christmas, and I have taken some delight in perusing the pages from time to time when my head becomes to tired for school work, but Julie has surprised me. I have alway given her points for being gracious enough to allow an almost nightly barrage of ball games of various sorts to invade our evenings, thinking that she was just being accomodating, but with the arrival of the magazine this year I have become convinced that she is only pretending not to care about sports as much as I do. She almost always gets the magazine before I do, and there have been more than a few times that she has let it slip in the course of a sports-laden conversation, "Yeah, I read that in Sports Illustrated."

I am on to you, Julie Stone. You are officially a sports-nerd; welcome to the club.

New Apartment

2007-05-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

Several of you have asked for pics of the new apartment we are moving into at the end of the summer. Here are just a few.This is potentially the view if our apartment faces the courtyard. We are on the 7th floor, but we do not know if we face inside or out.This is the view from the interior courtyard. Yes, that is a pool, but it seems a shame to actually swim in it, doesn't it?
This is our living room and kitchen.

Those interested can check it out fully here.

Thoughtful Rebuttal

2007-05-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

Will, I appreciate your comments, and I have thought long and hard on exactly how to refine my arguments. So, here is what I came up with:

You are obviously a terrorist, Osama Bin Norvell.

For proof, I present to you exhibit-A:

I think I have made my point.

Finally

2007-05-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

I have been without inspiration to write anything besides ‘updates' as of late, and I can only stomach so much of that – how many ways can I say, “It has been busy…Julie and I are good…We…blah, blah, blah, blah.” Yesterday, the long national nightmare that was Spring Term at UD ended, and after a very late night of exercising the demons at my new favorite watering-hole (The Ginger Man), I think my head is finally clear enough to think again. I even spent a couple of hours reading…wait for it, for FUN (reading has not been ‘fun’ for nearly 6 months).

As I said, inspiration has failed me, but ‘where the Lord closes a door….’, right? I can always count on good ‘ole Fox News-loving, ultra-Republican Betsy Stone to give me something to chew on, and this morning she came through in the clutch to break me out of my intellectual slump with this email:

Tokyo Rose

The other night we watched a movie called, "Flags of our Fathers." During the movie, I pointed out the radio broadcast of "Tokyo Rose." She had the best music on her station. During World War II; the Japanese developed a way to demoralize the American forces. Psychological warfare experts developed a message they felt would work. They gave the script to their famous broadcaster "Tokyo Rose" and every day she would broadcast this same message packaged in different ways. The Japanese hoped it would have a negative impact on American GI's morale.

What was that demoralizing message? It had three main points:

1. Your President is lying to you.

2. This war is illegal.

3. You cannot win the war.

Does this sound familiar today? It is because we are being bombarded by Tokyo Hillary, Tokyo Harry, Tokyo Teddy, Tokyo Nancy, , etc., and they have picked up the same message and are broadcasting it on Tokyo CNN, Tokyo ABC, Tokyo CBS, Tokyo NBC, etc., to our troops. The only difference is that they claim to support our troops before they demoralize them. Come to think of it, Tokyo Rose told the troops she was on their side too.

When did patriotism become synonymous with willful blindness? (allow me to invoke the authoritative “we”) We pound our fist against the table in defiance of anyone who would dare claim our president to be a liar? REALLY? We had no problem impeaching a womanizer when he was caught in adultery. We had little problem dismissing a liar after it was determined that he indeed “was a crook”. The very word ‘politician’ has become a punch line, part and parcel with lying; untruths are almost expected, and so why does Bush get a free pass? – because he has been dubbed the uber-Christian by the Right? – because he is a Republican (aka: The New Israel)? Simply put, he is a politician, he is a human, he is a liar.

Is it not possible both to be American and to be ashamed of our highest governing authority? Can we not call this war a mistake? – a mistake discovered long ago, but through the hubris of a pseudo-idealist, good-ole-boy with a gun, divine right of America president, it has turned from a bad idea to a multi-billion dollar staring contest with an infringed upon state, daring the other to blink first so that we might be declared right. I, though certainly not patriotic in the traditional sense of the word (I do not salute nor pledge allegiance to a flag), am proud of the free society that has been forged through several hundred years of labor on the part of my forefathers. I recognize that this freedom has been bought at a high price, namely the lives of those who have fought to secure the freedoms I undoubtedly take for granted, but this mantra does not apply in this instance, and I think it is despicable to invoke such hallowed imagery to win support for one man’s personal mission to reclaim a legacy squandered after 9-11.

We are sacrificing the lives of soldiers in the name of “Liberty”? Are you kidding me? – There are African nations in the midst of long-running civil wars and despotic totalitarianism far, far worse than that which was going on in Iraq. Where is our sense of “freedom for all” when it comes to the poor nations whose resources we do not need to sustain the American way of life? I suppose interceding on behalf of the Africans cannot help us drive our SUV’s and are therefore on a lower strata. We are only interested in protecting the 'liberty' of those whose interests intersect ours...and maybe this does not make us villainous after all. Haven't we dismissed the notion of absolute altruism long ago?

I am lazy; I did no research for this rant. Further, we need not agree; you need not vote for Obama or Clinton in '08 in order for us to be friends or family, but I would encourage anyone to download the podcast of “This American Life” from iTunes and listen to last month’s “Habeas Schmabeas”, which details the conditions at Guantánamo Bay. Hear the testimony of those ‘terrorists’ that have been released after several years’ incarceration, and tell me about the moral fortitude of our governing authorities.

The Newest Stone...kinda

2007-04-29T19:39:00.000-07:00

I wanted to say a hearty 'Congratulations' to Abbey and Jose and to welcome Jose to the Stone family. I suppose that in all fairness he is not a 'stone' per se; she is an 'esquivel', but for our purposes he is the former as much as she is the latter. That is my sister on the right, and yesterday my father (yes, the one crying on the right) officially handed her over to Jose in a ceremony in Waco. It was honestly one of the most enjoyable weekends that Julie and I have had in a very long time. I am not sure if I have ever had that many family or friends together in the same town at the same time. The wedding itself was nice, but being with everyone was wonderful.

I am generally something of a hermit by nature; I do not answer my cell phone, I retreat to my office whenever I get the chance, I hardly return emails in a timely manner...etc, etc, etc, but weekends such as this remind me how fortunate Julie and I are to have the families that we do. There are far too many, "We should....."'s that never amount to anything in the Stone-household, but without question, "We should make more of an effort to spend time with family and friends" is one that resonates deeply with me after this weekend.

The other highlight for me personally was being able to do music with one of my best friends and rock-megastar, Will Norvell. Once upon a time we learned to play guitar together as teenagers, and a few years later we tried to live together and play on a regular basis, but it was not until we were old and married that we were able to play together and it be truly enjoyable. I seriously could not be more impressed with him as a musician, and he really made the night musically.

Proof That I Am Alive

2007-04-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

I am a self-proclaimed selfish blogger; I am nothing short of irate when others do not update their sites, but I am absolutely comfortable adding to my growing list of contradictions and hypocrisies by not returning the favor.

I suppose for lack of time for substantial thought on a subject that is a.)Intriguing me, or b.) bothering me, I will indulge, for what I say to be for the limited sphere of bloggerland that is my audience, though in actuality, like Dostoevsky’ underground man I am only doing this to stroke my own ego (his was done out of spite, and I do not think that applies to me in this instance), in the ever-popular “update”.

Moving – it is official; no, we have not sold the house or found a new place, but we have a realtor coming by on Thursday, and we have committed in our minds to doing whatever is necessary to sell the house and move back to Dallas. The Lord has been very faithful to us with this house, and we are far from ungrateful (another Dostoevsky term) in unloading it, but it is the right time (though it may take a year to sell it…so maybe the “right” time is a foolish notion). Along with this change of venue we have had the good fortune to be able to give away a nice chuck of the “stuff” that we have accumulate over these last 3 years. Sunday night was pretty cool; we saw our first vanload, a van filled with our entertainment-center and a coffee-table-set, being driven away by a family who seemed ecstatic to have their needs met. We have basically reserved all of the furniture that we are getting rid of between family and friends, and we look forward to watching more of it drive off in the next few weeks.

New Job – Selling the house and moving back to Dallas has been heavy on our hearts for months, but our prayers have been that it might be made obvious to us. At present, both Julie and I work in Arlington, she goes to school here several nights a week, and basically moving would be an odd choice. Almost completely out of the blue (eerily unexpected), I was given an email address to a principal in a school in Dallas that I had never heard of. I was not looking for another job per se, but my friend knew that this school would be the kind of place I would fit in nicely, and he had heard they were looking to fill an English position for next year. I sent an email of inquiry, and within hours they emailed back asking for my resume. I sent it, and my attention was obviously aroused. When I received the standard obligatory response from the principal later that day (“Thanks….We will let you know if anything comes available….), I was neither surprised nor let down, and I assumed this was a dead-end. That night I received a much more excited email from the head of the department, who had been forwarded a copy of my resume, and she had insisted to the principal that an interview be set up immediately. Turns out, our educational backgrounds are very, very similar: she received her MA Humanities in Literature, though from UTD, and she was pursuing a second Masters at UD (it’s like a cult there – no one knows anything about it, but once you are there, you’re hooked). Long story short, we met for a few hours later that week, and we hit it off like old friends; we could not be more in line with the other’ views of teaching and literature. It is 2 or 3 times larger than my current school, and so I was not surprised when the principal sent me away with the understanding that the process had just begun, and that they would not make a final decision for a month or more. That was on a Thursday, by Friday morning the English-chair had emailed and said she had pleaded with the principal to look no further, to no avail, but before the weekend was finished I received an email from the principal saying that we agreed with his colleague, and they basically offered me the job if I wanted it.

After going in for a second interview, meeting with the headmaster and grilling them on the particulars of their school, they offered me a very nice position. I will be teaching 9th and 10th grade Pre-AP and AP English classes, the school is very academically rigorous, and the pay is a nice bump as well. All in all, I could not be more excited about it. The school is Prince of Peace Christian School in Carrolton (princeofpeace.org).

My Black Hole - The next month or so will be spent being devoured by Czeslaw Milosz, a really great Polish poet, Jane Austen, and the anti-Jane Austen (aka: Friedrich Nietzshe) The semester is winding towards a conclusion, I am in a good rhythm with my reading, but it's now time to begin researching and writing over these 3. I have already spent a few weeks on Milosz, whom I am growing to really growing to love, but the other 2 are hanging over me still, taunting me like school children. I'll show them.

That's enough for now.

my absence explained

2007-04-03T20:33:00.000-07:00

To be, not ask
Indecisive,
Like love-lorn leads
So often despair.

Underneath
Piles of rubble,
Rubbish maybe,
Static striving yet.

Idolize
Contemplatives,
Scholarly, the
Melancholy
Shade, it pervades.

Lacking, shell
Of confidence,
Daydream grandeur,
Be not far off.

Tolstoy and Vanity

2007-03-16T07:45:00.001-07:00

There is today, here, a pervasive sense of smallness and insignificance in the Stone-household. Prompted by multiple desires, I have been spending the first few days of my Spring Break, not in Colorado or New Mexico where there is snow-aplenty; no, I am doing a bit of what one might refer to as spring cleaning. In actuality, Julie and I are exploring the option of selling the house, and when/if we do this will expedite the process considerably when the time comes to move.

Coinciding with the cleaning of the house, I have spent the better part of most of these days in solitude, and being incapable of thoughtlessly spending time alone, I have been engaged in some form of spiritual clean-up as well.

My students and I have been studying a book which I fell in love with over this last summer. The Death of Ivan Ilych, a wonderful, short work of Leo Tolstoy (not stereotypically Russian in this way), tells the tale of the life and death of Ivan, showing motivations, relationships and most poignant on this reading, the futility of what consumes the majority of one' earthly existence.

One line in particular has stood out and been repeated to me for the past week or more: "In the dining-room, where was the bric-a-brac clock that Ivan Ilych had been so delighted at buying." I have been haunted by these lines since I reread them while preparing to teach the novel. There is nothing profound on the surface, but the subtext is disturbing, particularly as I rummage through the rooms of stuff that Julie and I have accumulated in our short lifetimes.

The scene in question takes place after Pyotr has begrudgingly gone to pay his respects to Ivan' wife upon his foreseen demise. The wife has attempted in vain to show grief, but she is too worried about financial arrangements to shed true tears, and Pyotr is plotting his way out of the house in order to attend an already begun card game that bodes much more excitement and enjoyment than reminiscing over the almost already forgotten dead man. It is only in passing from one room, filled with Ivan' former possessions that he glances but a moment at the clock upon the mantle (at least that is where it is as I imagine the scene). The moment is brief, and it would pass as unnoticeable to me as reader had he not referenced Ivan' delight. With this word I cannot pass quickly by any longer; it is no longer just a clock, it is his clock, something important to him.

There are no thought of morbidity on my mind necessarily, but I am as equally haunted by the things surrounding me in this house right now as I am by those words written a over one hundred years ago. It is as if the guitars and books, dishes and cd's are crashing in upon me. I love some of these things, they bring me delight, but they are as forgettable upon my demise as Ivan' clock.

Tolstoy is hardly the example by which I would like to fashion my life, he appears to have been a mean s.o.b. by the time of his death, but he also seems to have grasped the truth of Solomon' vanity of existence. How does one live like that? Tolstoy chose to, at 81, leave his family in the middle of the night to live as a pauper (he caught pneumonia and died shortly thereafter), and I suppose that is an option, but I imagine I will continue to wrestle with it for awhile before it comes to that.

2007-02-22T16:12:00.000-08:00

I am a critic by nature. I readily admit to you that there is little I enjoy more than sitting back, pipe in hand, glass of wine in the other, and discussing, internally or in company what I see around me. Whether it be one's faith, the school which employs me, or the next NBA champion (Dallas, by the way), it is cathartic and an instrument for sharpening the mind to take what is given to my senses and to comment upon these sensations so as to break them down into either their most basic, fundamental elements (philosophy) or skew them according to my own preferences (narcissism, I suppose), whichever way that I am leaning at that time. This has been tiresome to many throughout the years, most of my combatants seem to have taken their toys and gone home, and honestly I do not begrudge them for it; my lack of blog activity as of late can be directly attributed to the fact that I too have neither the energy nor inclination to exert myself into these thinking exercises. Last night, though, I was truly inspired in an as of late less than inspirational place.

One of my recent posts concerned the conservative-wackos (technical term, look it up) that constantly derail every conversation not explicitly Protestant in my Recent World class. These same individuals have been on this bent for several semesters in these classes I am required to attend, and so, absent those rare occasions that we are reading Luther or Calvin, and it is on these days that attendance is up and everyone waves their "scholarship" banners proudly, I generally dread Wednesday nights, because inevitably they will find a way to besmirch the evening in the name of piety (their-piety, that is).

Last night, though, saw the return of Dr. Hella Hennessee for a one-time lecture. If I have never mentioned her, she is an amazing professor with a wonderfully thick German accent who was recently run-out-of-town by the good people of UD (s0 the rumor goes). She resurfaced to discuss with us Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. (Let me pause here a moment: if you have never read this book, it is fabulous. Drop whatever you are reading, come borrow one of my copies and experience the brilliance of German literature. It is strange, but so rich and only 40 pages long - you could even stomach a book you turn out hating for 40 pages, right?)

I was reminded from her opening words of the privilege of studying literature. Teaching high school this past year has soured me in many ways, burning the sweet taste off of my tongue like so much salt, so it was good to be reminded of how refreshing good books/poems can be. I know embarrassing little about painting and sculpture, but for a few moments as I walked towards my car after the lecture, I paralleled the feeling it must be to notice an abnormality in a single brushstroke of a Picasso painting that you one has stared at a hundred times previously, to speculate on the meaning behind such a movement of the hand, to uncovering a subtle change in the narrative-voice or a clever use of a double-entendre that never struck you on your previous readings. To enjoy the manipulation of language, whether poetic or narrative is beautiful, and to spend my time studying it is a phenomenal way to muddle through this life.

Ashamed

2007-02-17T06:22:00.000-08:00

Tell me, what are we so afraid of? I realize even before I begin that this may once again reek of offensiveness, and so let me emphasize the use of “we” in my premise. OUR behaviour should seem to us offensive, though. I have stood upon this soapbox more than a few times, but I shall mount it again, because it physically and psychologically pains me to continually encounter what I encountered last night.

Last night was a banner-evening in The Recent World (My final Humanities requirement for my MA), because we got the opportunity in a usually historical, literary or political intensive course to read “The Genealogy of Morals”, a philosophy text by Friedrich Nietzsche. I was thrilled with this selection for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact that I had read the book three times in the last five years or so, and so I would not have to reread it last week. Mainly, I wanted to get Dr. Sullivan’s take on it, because he is mainly a historical-political scholar, and I had only discussed the book in strict philosophical circles up to this point.

What a mess last night turned out to be. We were not five minutes into the lecture, Sullivan giving strictly biographical data about the man, Nietzsche, when snide remarks about his madness begin buzzing about the room and gross generalizations in the questions and comments of the students are all but begged to replace the complexity of the truth of his life. I get it, it is much easier to categorize his “death of God” into a side-effect of syphilitic-madness than to delve into it fully, meeting Nietzsche on his terms and divorcing ourselves from preconceived notions of Judeo-Christian morality, but are we not then acting the role of bigot and dogmatist that we accuse Nietzsche of being himself?

At the halfway point of the three hours we took our customary break, and apparently many took this as their cue to break with decorum and, at the very least, academic integrity, which basically compromised any idea of having civilized discussion for the rest of the evening. Until class ended, the professor continued to be lambasted on all sides by a vocal group of pious individuals who would not concede the most basic points to Nietzsche. The arguments were a specimen in absurdity, from accusing Nietzsche as philologist (person who studies the history and origin of language/words) of not defining his terms correctly, and even extending to the argument against a basic understanding of history and the development of something like the social contract. Nietzsche is thorough in his retelling of history, and he undoubtedly has an agenda in mind in “Genealogy”, but you must approach him with a semblance of rationale, as a philosopher on his terms, otherwise you sound more like an angry child who has been deprived a toy than a scholar.

I will not bore you with a recounting of “Genealogy” and its value for humanity and Christianity; rather, I will repeat: what are we so afraid of?

If we put aside our lexicon of “grace”, “sanctification”, “sin”...etc, and we dialogue with philosophers on their own terms, will we cease to be Christian? Does the reading of dirty-secular-texts absolve us of our faith? Is that what is in fact meant by blasphemy?

Or might we be so bold as to “get a little dirty” and join in actual conversation with those who have gone before us and are still proclaiming their gospels loudly today? One cannot go to a Protestant church without hearing about “servant-evangelism” or “meeting people where they are”, but it appears that this only applies to the homeless of the abused, to the neglected or the poor, not the scholar, not the artist. We will serve meals to the homeless on Thanksgiving as a sign of Christ’s love for ALL people, but we will not be approachable when it comes to matters that question our faith. It is as if we showed up to the T-giving Day meal, but only served those who could show their proof of employment and homeowner’s insurance.

If we believe God’s truth to be truth, if we hold that nothing can separate us from His love, and if we agree that there is an imperative to proclaim the gospel to ALL people, we must be not afraid to engage the culture we live in. We might have to concede a few points here and there, we can certainly “claim back [truth] as if from its unjust possessors”, but you will have to get your hands a bit dirty. I am not advocating that we all read Nietzsche, far from it, but I am asking that we approach our various disciplines with a measure (large-measure) of grace and liberality.

January Musings

2007-02-01T05:10:00.000-08:00

I have not the time nor energy to write a full, detailed account of anything that I have been wanting to for the last few weeks, and so I will have to settle for an abbreviated version of various musings (this might be more palatable for you).

• School has begun – it is one of the greatest oddities known to man, or at least me; twice a year I begin a new semester, and twice a year I am surprised at the busyness of it. I have heard, though I know not from whom, that the body blocks out trauma as a defense mechanism. I heard this in the context of people birthing multiple babies. The logic was something to the extent that if women’s bodies remembered the pain of labor they would never do it more than once. I have applied that same strangeness to the phenomena of semesters; let me use this last one for example.

When I last left the corridors of the University of Dallas in mid-December I was sick with what can only be described as a precursor to the plague, I was stressfully agitated to the point of snapping at friends, family and most assuredly my students, and I would have welcomed death as a sweet relief from enduring any more of anything. (disclaimer: yes, I realize the overuse of hyperbole in most of my statements, and, no, I do not think I would have actually welcomed death, nor do I believe I contracted any mediaeval disease, but you get the general idea) Most certainly, I decided with 100 percent resolve that I could not, nay, I would not take 9 hours again while trying to teach and coach; physically, I did not count myself capable of such a feat again. Sometime in the next month all of those firmly entrenched feelings and memories faded, being replaced by false memories of semi-enjoyment with only slight irritations and tiredness along the way. Fueled by these pseudo-memories, I once again signed up for a full-load, and 1 week in, this sucks, and I hate my body for convincing me otherwise.

• Darwin’s Origin of Species – part of the so eloquently enunciated “this sucks” is that my first reading assignment for one of my classes was to read Darwin’s tome. I have griped in jest for the last week, but, truth be told, I was thrilled for the opportunity to finally read this seldom any longer examined book. It is well written despite its scientific nature, and, though I was forced to read very, very quickly, I quite enjoyed it.

A professor of mine last semester made several statements to the effect of, “If you are a Christian who does not believe in Evolution (or Darwinism, I cannot remember), you are an idiot (he was a fun guy).” I will not claim to understand it on the basis of one reading, and I honestly have no interest in the scientific per se, but I can at least get a glimpse of what he was talking about. For the entirety of my life Darwin has been rated as such a villain and God-hater that I would never have thought that Christianity could coexist with Darwinian Evolution, but I less steadfast in such a belief now. I fear that too many generations of those who have sermonized against him have not even read him. There are, believe or not, some very pious statements made by Darwin in the book. He acknowledges God and his creative abilities, but he makes the fundamental error of many philosophers: he made God too rational.

I suppose many think it makes God less fun to strip him of the ever-miraculous. It is not sexy enough to have a finite number of creations that mutate over time and form other species ad infinitum; we need our God to, with hammer and chisel, construct anew each and every variation of every animal in existence through all of eternity. That is a very romantic view of God, but what is wrong with a hybrid of the two? Is God’s creativity so constrained when he builds the clocks, sets it in motion and then allows it to run?

Julie and I heard a sermon/study on this last Sunday night from our pastor that spoke in part to this same thing. His argument was that if one believes in anything approaching Naturalism we lose a personal God. I agree that Darwinists, Rationalists, Naturalists, Calvinists, and ____________-ists of your choosing, have perverted and exaggerated the beliefs upon which they were founded, but we are not therefore constrained to throw out the baby with the bathwater (score!, cliché). Is God really so personal as such a statement alludes to? As I walked to my car at lunch, the wind blew my hair into a greater mess than it even was previously. Should I believe that God grabbed each individual strand atop my head and moved it from one spot to another, and if so, to what purpose does the wind blow, or is it okay to assume that God did indeed create hair, he likewise created wind, and that the one in interaction with the other caused the lunchtime incident? Perhaps I am sacrilegious, but the absurdity of the former belief over the latter is more than I can handle.

• Teaching? – I am a glorified hall-monitor at this point. If I spent nearly as much time preparing, grading or teaching my allotted subjects as I do having to take people’s hoodies force them to the bathroom to comply with dress code, I would be Mr. Holland. Yes, Mom, I know that he is the dream-teacher, but it is about as realistic a depiction of education as Batman is of law enforcement. Let us see how well he would have inspired those young minds had he spent half his time taking away cell phones and ipods and having to literally chase kids through the hallways to get them to even go to the principal’s office, which you have sent them to each day. America is doomed.
• Derek Webb – yes, boys and girls, the white-t-shirted-wonder has done it again. While I usually bristle at the idea of re-releasing previously recorded music in new packaging “One-Zero” is something I can get wholly behind. There are no new songs exactly, but he took his most controversial songs and did acoustic reinterpretations of them a la Alanis Morisette’s remake of “Jagged Little Pill” (also very good, by the way). I really love this guy, and if you have never given him a listen, this might be a good place to start; he is thoughtful and poetic, and I believe at the very least these songs allow for the opening of dialogue concerning the gospels’ role in politics and society within the life of the believer.
• Jane Austen – I attended my first class this last Monday, and I must say, I really enjoyed it. Dr. Kenney is truly a great professor, and she opened up, even in the first 3 hours, a depth to Austen that I would not have ever guessed. The best part, though, is that she brought in a bottle of rum and scones. Apparently this is a weekly occurrence, and so I greatly look forward to 13 weeks more of eating, drinking and Austen. Sipping rum makes any novel, even if they turn out bad, pretty readable.

Brilliant!

2007-01-24T14:33:00.000-08:00

The Today Show, which Julie and I have faithfully tuned into for our morning-time news and entertainment since the inception of our marriage, and which I have had going in the background during the 20-30 or so minutes I am getting dressed and heading out of the door since I was in jr. high. It is a staple around the Stone household, though I hear my mother has defected towards a more ‘fair and balanced’ rendering of the top stories. I am praying for you, Mom.

Yesterday was a banner-day for those clever Today’rs, because they managed to both report a story about unfair criticism-for-the-sake-of-humor on the part of the judges on American Idol while themselves engaging in the selfsame activity. Let me just add that since the Meredith Vierra replaced Katie Couric there have, in my opinion, been many more of these type moments than the show previously contained. Also in my opinion, a little sarcasm only improves the news.

Back to yesterday. First there was the earth shaking news, “The American Idol Judges Are Rude and Demeaning to the Contestants This Year”, as if every other year they have welcomed them with hugs and kisses and patted them on the head for their effort. Is that not the appeal of the show? It is most assuredly the only reason Julie and I have ever stayed on the channel for more than 20 or 30 seconds while biding our time during the commercials of a Mavericks game. Apparently someone had not informed the news media of this mistreatment of young wannabes, because two Idol castoffs have, in a very Hung-ian manner, grabbed the spotlight for being emotionally scarred by their mistreatment. Not to be outdone by the likes of Jimmy Kimmel, Today thought it appropriately newsworthy to have these two losers (not making a commentary about them, merely calling them that which their definition demands) on for a 5 minute segment to bemoan their ill-treatment.

Let us stop the story here for a second. 5 minutes, really? Earthquakes in India, murders in Boston, potential cures for cancer; these received 20-30 second blurbs, but for some reason these freaks deserve several minutes to relay their terror and humiliation. The segment begins by shaming Idol with clips of the their worst entrants auditions, but they are not glorifying it; no, they are relaying the news. After indulging my sick curiosities in this manner, for I do so love mocking the delusional, debating all the while whether my friends and family are allowing me to harbor those same fantasies of talent or ability, they cut to the stars of the morning, one sitting like a slightly retarded Hawaiian-shirt clad Augustus Klum (fat kid on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and the other, fidgeting and squirming in his seat, looking like some sort of strung-out, possibly anorexic hobbit continually flashing ‘devil’s horns’ with his index and pinky fingers and sticking out his tongue. After several teases, each time showing the pair, an SNL sketch’s dream, they finally begin the interview.

Within 10 seconds of this train wreck it is apparent that these two are not there for expose on Idol; they are there so that Today might take their turn at kicking them in the crotch, all under the auspices of a serious news story. Genius! They extend this mess for what seems like an eternity, each answer filled with the most confusing, entertaining commentary that two people could muster. What is more, they actually uncover that Mr. Hawaii is, that’s right, legitimately mentally impaired. He has some version of autism and has competed several times in the Special Olympics, but that does not stop them from continuing to subtly jab him with his own idiocy. One long, uncomfortable pause and the re-asking of the same questions, allowing different answers made for wonderful theatre.

Way to go, Today, you cleverly stole American Idol’s best idea and somehow made it your own. I say that tomorrow you give an inside look into life in a trailer park; there are always quality interviews to be had there.

I found it on YouTube. Enjoy the show.

Nice, Undeserved Break

2007-01-20T08:49:00.000-08:00

One does not "look a gift horse in the mouth" (I think that is how the saying goes....though I admit I do not know the origin), but this is almost too good of a week not to comment upon. Thanks to the previously mentioned civil rights pioneer's work and America's fear of offending the black community, white-bread St. Alban's gave me Monday off, but today was a special surprise. Julie and I did not get home until after 11:00 last night, and, though really cold, the streets were dry and able to be driven upon at top speed. About 5 and 1/2 hours later I received a phone call saying that school had been canceled. Somewhere in those hours there had fallen a fine layer of snow and ice that once again shut down the city. So, we enjoyed yet another day of reading and resting.

I am trying to get through the "Juvenalia" of Jane Austen, which encompasses everything she wrote before she was a decent writer. Let me be brief and blunt; it is almost unreadable; seriously, unreadable. Imagine if you will enjoying your favorite singer....when they were infants. Try listening to the equivalent of 250 pages of Stevie Wonder at 3 years old; that is what I spent the majority of the day reading....except worse.

To break up the Elizabethan monotony of purity and niceness Julie and I partook of a couple of movies that promised at least a little something less good. If you know Julie and I, you know that we rent movies about once a year, and so we had to make it good. There were two or three that I had wanted to see, and luckily for me a couple of them were at the snow-day-ravaged Blockbuster. We ended of seeing "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Last Kiss".

I was going to give my take on the movies, but this post has been sitting on my desktop for the last week, and I will never post it if I wait until I have time to think it through. Be your own judge, but check them out if you get a chance.

Purging of My Soul

2007-01-15T14:47:00.000-08:00

I have lately embarked upon what can only be characterized as the cleansing of my soul through literary means. For at least the next 4-6 months I am officially trading:

for:

Disturbing, is it not?

Though it has looked debatable in recent years, I am not wandering aimlessly through the corridors of the University of Dallas, and my intention is indeed to graduate with some haste. To accomplish this, as well as my equal goal of understanding my wife, un-understandable as she sometimes presents herself, I have enrolled in a Jane Austen class. It is the only class that fits perfectly with my other two and allows me to teach and coach basketball.

So, for the sake of practicality and forethought, I spent this holiday weekend (I appreciated your post, Jamie) reading Sense and Sensibility. This semester may prove to be my toughest yet. I am going to read everything she wrote over the next few months, but I may have to sneak in some Nabokov or Nietzsche to counteract the G-rated onslaught against my mind at the hands of Austen.

One down, I will start the next this evening. Perhaps there is hope for my soul yet.

I Am Rocky

2007-01-02T07:39:00.000-08:00

Let me begin by stating shamefully, "I saw Rocky XI".

In my defense, let me say that I had been driving six hours that morning, from Angel Fire to Ruidoso, and I just wanted to unwind in front of a movie. The problem is that the aforementioned Ruidoso-cineplex has only four movies, and only one of these was suitable for anyone over twelve-years-old. As I flipped my coin between Charlotte's Web and Rocky, thank God it landed on heads, and so to Rocky Balboa I cheerily went. After all, who doesn't love a good Rocky movie?

Secondly, let me admit equally shamefully, "I enjoyed Rocky XI".

Though I normally go for the mentally stimulating, thought-provoking movies that cause one to consider life and oneself more closely, this was pure Rocky-fun. It was full of those surprising twists and turns that you never expect in a Rocky film. Believe it or not, he was a common man from Philadelphia who was an underdog to the much younger, more experienced title fighter. There is a training montage where, yes, he drinks raw eggs, runs up the steps a-la Rocky I, and he even boxes a raw piece of meat, all to the rhythm of some inspirational pop song. He nearly gets knocked out, but his seeing his family brings him back, and he fights strong to the end. Like I said, very surprising stuff, but it was good. The final scene, by the way; greatness. Rocky is shown with arms upraised, and the American flag is shown clear as day in the background. What Rocky movie would be complete without some patriotic overtones? The Great-White-Hope, right? I cannot say that I noticed the American flag behind the cocky, lazy, thug-life black fighter. Coincidence?

To the reason for this post:

Two days later, after several dry and warm days in the Ruidoso mountains, we awoke one morning to this.

Overnight there had fallen about 7-8 inches of snow where the day before there had been none. I ran into a dilemma. Each morning, that I had stayed there I had run down the hill to the several-mile track that outlined the golf course and ran 6-7 miles in the mountain air. It had been the highlight of my mornings, because the hills and the thin air made it as tough as any workout I ever experienced in thick-aired, flat Texas.

That is when I was reminded of this:

I remembered that Rocky IV, the one with Drago the evil Russian, was complete with yet another training-montage that featured Rocky running in the mountains in several inches of snow. He's a great patriot, so am I. He had a tobaggon-hat, so do I. He was fighting for the sake of democracy and against communism, so....maybe there are some differences. Either way, I was inspired.

So, I put on my snowboarding books, my toboggan, and about several layers of clothes, and I set off down the hill towards the snow covered track. I had never had both so much fun and so hard a workout. Each step buried me mid-shin in the snow, and for a Texas-boy this was really great. I ran three and almost turned around, but with the Rocky scene coming to mind, I pushed on through the complete seven miles and made it back home.

I believe I am now qualified to fight the steroid-ridden, communist-touting Drago.

Running in the Snow

2006-12-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

Seriously, is there anything in the world better than running in the snow? I have always been a fan of running in the rain, which is the closest thing to snow that we have in Texas aside from the once-per-year free day from work/school, the day that DFW locks its doors for the ever popularly phrased winter blast, but today I actually was privileged to run through a light snow storm.

I have had a rough Christmas holiday to say the least. My basketball tournament was canceled several weeks ago, and so I have been forced, kicking and screaming, to spend the whole of my time away from school in the drudgery of the New Mexico mountains. Ugh! What is worse, I was also made to snow board for three solid days on a deserted mountain in Angel Fire, and now I might even have to do the same in Ruidoso later today. I have had the misfortune to read several novels, drink my body weight in coffee, watch more than my share of football and basketball, and even smoke some hand-rolled cigars on a sprawling porch while trying to distinguish between the smoke of the burning tobacco and the steam being naturally emitted from my warm mouth breathing into the chill air. All said, it has been tough.

Truly, the only bad thing about this trip is that it will have to end in a few days. Texas, I do not miss thee.

Maybe Philosophical Theology Cannot Exist

2006-12-15T08:37:00.000-08:00

Chad, I have to disagree with you on your last comment, but I am thinking that we might always have to disagree, not because we are both too staunchly entrenched in our positions, but because we are in effect speaking two different languages.

You are approaching the topic theologically, which is your prerogative, and I cannot fault you for that, but your stance presupposes the existence of something that philosophical discourse cannot. I am not saying that God, in some form or another cannot be said to exist, but not the God of Christianity exactly. To prove a god exists does not take as much of a logical-leap, at least for me, as proving that this same god is one as written in one book. Theology is a worthy branch of study, and I am certainly not discounting it, but one cannot engage in a philosophical investigation by referencing the Bible. It would be like trying to have a scientific discussion of gravity and someone counter-arguing with Peter Pan's ability to fly in the children's book.

Perhaps by mixing theology and philosophy in the original premise I confused the issue. The pastor referred to sin specifically, and so I lazily used the term, but I should probably have clarified my terms before supposing they would be used by all in the same way I was using it. By sin, I was referring to depravity and lawlessness against a prevailing moral order. One need not appeal to Christianity for a notion of sinfulness in this way. I am robbing a Christian term of its autonomy as Christian-term, and I am widening its perameters for the sake of argument; lazy perhaps, but I am going to keep it as opposed to saying, "deviation from a moral-order within a given community" everytime I want to express the notion of sin.

Sinfulness, in the context divorced of exclusively-Christian connotations, cannot then, it seems to me, be anything except an effect. Sinfulness would have to result from the activity of sin, and so it struck a chord within me to hear a baby called that which it could not possibly be. I realize the context of the comment. He was not wrong, because according to the set of parameters that the church operates within, that being Scriptural-authority, it makes perfect sense, but so too does it make sense to Trekkies that Scottie can beam Capt. Kirk from one galaxy to the next. Divorced from the context of the worldview it exists under, it does not (once again, in my opinion) add up.

I also realize that, according to worldview-rationality, no one can escape presuppositions. I have mine; they are more than likely painfully obvious, but one of them is that the world is created by a god in an ordered, logical fashion. I choose not to discount miracles, which makes me a borderline 'whacko' in any philosophical circles, but apart from the miraculous, existence appears to have been ordered in an, well, ordered fashion.

I am not attempting, with few exceptions, to pick a fight in my posting, but I am trying to point out what appear to be inconsistencies that are worthy of consideration within the faith of which I claim standing.

Big News! - Our Family Has Grown

2006-12-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

Yep, you guessed it; my students have given me TWO new thermoses, or thermai. I believe that brings the count up to seven! I suppose part of the beauty or danger of drinking out a thermos everyday while teaching is that students have an easy default for gift-giving. I am not complaining, though....they can keep them coming...I love them.

Here are some pics of the new additions to our family; enjoy.

No Feeling Like It

2006-12-14T08:22:00.000-08:00

I have a bit of pity for the working-world at large. For those who are finished with their education there is some measure of sadness, because I am not sure that you are allowed any longer to experience what it is that I am experiencing right now. The euphoria of taking that last test, turning in that last paper or attending that last class of the semester is like nothing I have experienced. It is not earth shattering, not like having a baby or getting married; let us keep it in its proper perspective, but there is the feeling of a great weight being lifted from your shoulders. Literally, your steps become immediately lighter, your thoughts brighten, and, in general, you feel as if the world is once open. Without question, these possibilities will be tempered with reality, the next month off will not be nearly what you think it will, concerns and deadlines of different varieties will take precedence, but you cannot think of that at a moment like this. For now, absolute joy.

Logical Fallacy

To open up a completely different can of worms, I have been troubled by something that I heard at church on Sunday morning during a baby dedication. Let me me begin with the prefatory-caviat that I am not arguing what Scripture does or does not say. I realize that faith is dependent upon belief in the absurd (ala Kierkegaard), but this is often entirely contrary to logic. Scripture speaks to three-day-old corpses being raised from the dead and ascending to heaven, but one cannot argue that this is consistent with reality-at-large. The miraculous aside, for that is an entirely different arena that need not be discussed here, there are certain doctrines that occasionally seem equally puzzling to my finite mind.

More to the point, on Sunday, while two babies were being prayed over by their parents' pastor, there was a phrase uttered that caught me a little off guard. It is not as if I had never heard such a thing, but it never resonated quite the same way as it did at that moment. His wording I cannot remember, but he made clear his stance that these babies were already covered in sin and in need of redemption one day. Perhaps he was not saying that they were already enmeshed in sinfulness, but he was indeed certain, as were all those in attendance, that they would be.

My problem with this is minor. Once again, laying aside Scripture, because that argument must always be circular in nature, it seems inherently illogical to call those babies sinful. They cannot possibly have sinned, could they? I grant that parents say that even babies show a tendency towards selfishness, vanity...etc, but is this sin? They have no rational thought nor conscience, so they cannot be held accountable for their actions any more than we might hold one accountable for one's fantasies while dreaming.

Even if the likelihood is that they will sin one day, and that is hardly arguable, the simple fact is that they have not yet, and therefore they should not yet be branded as sinners. It is like convicting someone who mutilates an animal as a child as a murderer, because statistically those who engage in the one act also engage in the other.

There is nothing theological or proven about this, I am too tired and lazy for that today, but it is stewing in my mind.

Confucius Rolls Over In His Grave

2006-12-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

Confucius Rolls Over In His Grave

Is this really what Confucius had in mind when he began giving his aphoristic proverbs, from which, my assumption would be, the idea of fortune cookies in some way arose? My class and I just this day studied ancient China, Confucius in particular, and it was today that I received this fortune in my cookie after lunch: You have executive ability.

Ancient China, in its empiristic infancy, according to the geniuses behind the 9th-10th grade World History book, was built originally upon the backs of scholars and philosophers, Confucius being the chief of these, who sought to order a society rationally and with the intent of creating “whole” people. They sought to feed the souls, minds and bodies of the inhabitants of their country, and they used wisdom and ideals to do so. They were eventually destroyed by totalitarian types that thirsted for power and money just as Plato predicts in the Republic I might add, but the original academics behind China’s growth and unity were much more Socrates than Napoleon.

Now Orient-wisdom is reduced to nothing more than the same business model that the rest of the world operates under. With lottery numbers on the back and Tony Robbins-esque business pick-me-ups on the front, fortune cookies have reached their ultimate low, barring their future messages “Sponsored by McDonald’s”.

Where have the idealists gone? Have those people that created empires and traveled the world in search of truth and freedom of ideas been killed-off by the Westernization and American Dreaming of the entire globe. I watch my classes sleep through Plato and Homer, the foundations of literature, struggle through Hemingway and Fitzgerald, both of which are only a step above headline-writing in newspapers, and go entire summers without so much as glancing towards a book, and I am troubled. I’ve no answers; just troubled today.

What Is This a Picture Of?

2006-11-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the better question would be this: What is this NOT a picture of? Answer: This is NOT a picture of me at work at 9:30 this morning! Seriously, is there any better phone call in the world than the one at 5:45 that says, "Hey, coach, just wanted to let you know that school has been called off for the day due to the weather."? Suddenly, though it is still dark outside, the sun shines a little brigher, the cold does not sting your toes so much, and I would swear that an angel just received its wings. I am giddy with excitement at my school's quick-triggered response to even the slightest bad weather. Go Alban's!

I think the administrative staff was looking for any reason to take the day off, because they have been having to make major cuts this week in order to recoup 167 thousand dollars in 5 days. My understanding is that this means there will be a few less faculty/staff by this time on Monday morning. It has made for a relatively hushed and tense office-house this week. I feel fairly safe, but I did lose my first game as a coach, so we will see.

As I mentioned, the coaching gig started out with a whimper; we were blown-out by 25-or-so points, but we had only had 30 minutes of practice prior to the game, so I was pleased that we played as well as we did. Whatever they had been taught up to this point might be in complete opposition to the way that I want to play basketball, so it was like I was speaking Japanese to them the whole game. I would say, "Take it in", and they would assume that I wanted them to pass the ball to the double-teamed post player, when I really wanted them to drive to the basket. They did not know how to fast break, they couldn't set up in a half-court offense, the guards were afraid to dribble the ball, and they did not know how to run a simple 2-3 zone. Only 25 points might have been a gift.

Yesterday was my first practice with them, and it could not have gone better. I have been assisting with the varsity boys for this entire year, offseason workouts through the first 1/4 of the season thus far, and it has been like a kick in the groin every day of the week. They do not listen, they certainly do not consistently hustle, they roll their eyes, they pout, and they generally talk and play THEIR way.....which has led to more than a few embarrassing losses (30-plus points embarrassing). I could not be happier to be coaching these girls after 1 practice. They listened to every word I said, as if it was coming from Jesus Christ himself; in fact, they even "shsssed" someone for whispering something while I was explaining a drill. They hustled for 2 solid hours of practice, never once walking or jogging when it was supposed to be a sprint. They listened; when I said "bend your knees and sit lower on defense, they actually did it. They are not the most gifted athletes in the world, but they worked themselves as hard as I could push them in a 2 hour span. I am convinced that with their work-ethic they will win some games this year. I am excited to be doing it.

I better get back to studying. I am down to just a couple of weeks, and it is getting harder to stay motivated, but I am trying. Hope you all are getting a day off today or tomorrow too.

The Ending of an Era

2006-11-29T11:26:00.000-08:00

It has been creeping up behind me for some nearly two years now. I have often looked over my proverbial shoulder to see if it had caught up with me, ready to overtake me and take me back down to the realm of the common coffee drinker. Well, it did catch me, and it rather caught me by surprise despite my previous diligence….one might even use the apocalyptic, biblical imagery of, “like a thief in the night.”

I am no longer a Starbucks Barista; this crushes me.

It has been a good run; I am sad to see it go. Who would have known that a job I intended to work no more than 9 months would have stretched into more than four years? I suppose such a statement is a little misleading, though.

I worked diligently for the coffee-giant for about three years, most of that spent waking at 4:45 am in order to make it to the store by 5:30 am to feed the addictions of those unfortunates also forced to rise at that hour. I found that I enjoyed those people, and they were the same people each day, more than any other patron that came through the doors of 11919 Preston Rd. on any given day. Perhaps it is due to the fact that they too understood the drudgery of getting up hours before the sun in order to pay the bills and they gave me a break, but more than likely they were just too tired to put up much by way of a fight, and so their personalities that would normally be as grating as most of the others were subdued by the need for more sleep. Either way, they were great.

The 7:00 am crowd was by far the worst; they were hurried, angry, easily-annoyed, and mostly just pains-in-the-ass. My most lasting memory of the 7:00 am’ers is Debby (no, not that one). This one is a she-devil of sorts, sister or more likely mother of Beelzebub, and she made it her mission, particularly in my waning months of active employment, to make her 3-5 minutes of daily contact miserable. I believe I intentionally made her drink wrong on my last day just to reciprocate the spite and somehow avenge my years of assault….it certainly satisfied me.

The 9:00 am crowd; by far, the best. Probably due to the fact that they were either a.) retired, b.) housewives, or c.) executive-types who can flex their schedules enough to enjoy a leisurely, extended coffee break, they were just friendly and laid-back. It is from this group that I have made friendships that have extended beyond the storefront.

My co-workers (aka: partners); I have never been around a more mixed-bag of various states of insanity in my life. I have always stated that Starbucks has two things going for it that will forever ensure that their workforce’s ratio of utterly-odd to normal will be rivaled by none. First, the whole coffee-shop atmosphere attracts a certain artistic-type that you Dillard’s does not, and second, they pride themselves on diversity in hiring to the point of absurdity at times. Look around next time you are in one of the 12-14 thousand stores worldwide; you can almost make a “diversity roll-call”. White-artsy guy? – check, Black-woman? – check, Lesbian? – check, Old-retiree? – check, and who can forget, Hot-young blonde (or occasionally you can substitute brunette)? – check…..or in the case of my store – check, check, check (I am not making accusations, but there was a disproportionate number of pretty young girls at my store for a time…not that I am complaining). Diversity = Drama, and there was not a day that went by without wanting to kill one of them. It was like managing a group of hyperactive-preteens at times, but I loved them. Weird, but great.

Some of you might be a bit confused, saying, “Michael, I thought you were a school teacher.” You would be correct, because the last year and a half of employment at Starbucks have been by far the best. I went from forty-hours a week to eight to sixteen-hours per YEAR! That’s right, per year. My manager was a really cool guy, and he allowed to hang out on the payroll for all of this time, which did not earn me any money, but it did earn me a free lb. of coffee every week and a thirty-percent discount at every store nationwide. In return I only had to work one shift per quarter to keep corporate off of his back. It was beautiful, but I suppose that all beauty is subject to fading with age, and this was no exception. Apparently the District Manager caught what was going on and decided it was not in the best interest of the company to give away their product to a leech, and so she forced Mark to dispense with Partner #1151029. Sad day.

A New Chapter

On an interesting side-line, the very same day I received that call about being fired from Starbucks, I was given the head basketball coaching position for the varsity girls at St. Alban’s. We may be awful, really awful, but I am excited for the opportunity to run a varsity program. More on that later.

Saviour of the World or Infamous Murderer

2006-11-26T21:26:00.000-08:00

I was faced with one of life's great mysterious questions this evening. Upon entering church a woman asked if I had signed up for 'living christmas' yet (this is apparantly some sort of drive-thru nativity scene that the church does every year at this time). I had honestly been waiting for the invite, because I already have the beard that 50 percent of the men in the church are now attempting to grow for the occasion. I said that I had not, and so she left me with the option: Jesus or Barrabas.

Apart from the question of whether or not I even want to be involved in the whole ordeal, this presents quite a quandry for me. I suppose that it feeds nicely into my Jesus-complex to play the role of the one-and-only Saviour, but this is perhaps even a bit much for my inflated sense of self. I am prone to a good deal of cursing at different moments, and so would the sacrilege be all the more exaggerated if it occured while dressed as Jesus? You never know when you are going to stub your toe and say something very un-Saviour like.

Barrabas seems a much more appropriate part for me to play. Though I am not a murderer, I am quite sinful. Undoubtedly I will speed in my car on the way to the church (sin), I will probably think nasty thoughts about the urchins that I taught earlier that day (sin 2X), and a host of other unJesus-like thoughts/actiities (sin 3X, 4X, 5X....ect).

I suppose I should thereby stick with the ugly sinner; I play one of those everyday.

Happy Thanksgiving

2006-11-23T13:32:00.001-08:00

Julie and I just wanted to wish everyone a happy turkey-day. We have had plenty of it in the last 24 hours, and now we are camped on the couch watching the Cowboys game.

We have also been playing with my fun camera on my computer.....enjoy.

....and my favorite...

You Can't Make Me Work, Brain

2006-11-20T06:46:00.000-08:00

I should be working; nay, I should be knee-deep in solving the perplexing issues contained in Goethe’s Faust or Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human. I have the luxury of 7 days off, time which I have allotted for the strict formulation and hopeful completion of the term papers that will be due in the next 3-4 weeks. Here is the problem, I do not want to. I could not be less motivated at this moment to work hard. I have 400 pages left in a novel that I have to give a presentation over 7 days from now, and I have about 6 out of 35 or so pages of research-papers completed, but at this moment I could not care any less. I would rather sit here doing nothing, checking my email every 5 minutes than work hard.

This will pass. In fact, just the very venting of my frustrations has motivated me to begin my work anew. Here I go.

Pink Thermos and The Will to Death

2006-11-17T22:40:00.000-08:00

This very serious looking gentleman is the reclusive Mr. Stone on a Friday, just hours before being released for the extended Thanksgiving holiday. That’s right, this is him happy. His exuberance is due to the bright pink heat-sustainer known as new thermos that he is holding in his hand. He is a fan of new thermos, though it is a bit gay, because yesterday morning one of his students gave him said heat-control device. Fear not, he washed it prior to its inaugural use (that was his first thought too).

Okay, enough of the obnoxious third person, let me now proceed with the equally (or more-so) obnoxious first-person. I have been noticeably absent (at least I noticed) from blogging these last few weeks for several reasons. First, I have been a little short on free time, though this hardly an excuse in my opinion, but mostly I have not had anything that I felt compelled to publish to blogger. I have started several, but most have been either mindless, without mercy and compassion, or half-hearted attempts at humor. I chose to wait until I could not wait any longer, and now is that time.

My Nietzsche class has wound down slowly, and last night was the last new book that we will read for the class. We read and discussed one of his concluding works, Twilight of the Idols, which reads something like a concluding manifesto.

He writes in his last paragraph:
“...but, beyond pity and terror, to realize in oneself the eternal joy of becoming - that joy which also encompasses joy in destruction.

Nietzsche’s great problem with Christianity lies in this pity and terror, or, as he elucidates many times throughout his books, in their will to death. The entire idea of dying to oneself, submitting in weakness to an unseen, unheard power on the basis of faith is repellant. He calls for mankind to flex its proverbial muscles, as evidenced in its instinctual nature that Christianity fights against, and rise up in strength. Pity, fear, death, empathy...etc, lead one only to misery and death - Christianity, in his estimation, looks something like a sickness, and he holds man to be capable of so much more.

Though I am certainly a Nietzsche-apologist, and by that I mean that I would pound the table in defiance of anyone who said his criticisms have no place in the Christian experience, but, for once I am going to resist the tendency to kick my own while down and focus rather on the irony in Nietzsche’s own statements. He sharply criticizes the Christian’s will to death, but what about the same will present in the academician.

It is at this time each semester that I am painfully aware of my mortality. As is often the case, I am falling a bit under the weather, and I blame it entirely upon myself. I eat worse - where I began the semester on a strict and sparse diet, I care less and less now as the weeks progress. I sleep less and work more - I do not suppose this needs further explanation. My alcohol and tobacco intake have increased substantially - call me what you will, but I cannot deny it. I am less happy, less attentive to my wife and job, and generally becoming farther removed from normal in mind and body as the semester progresses. Academics, like the Christ, seem to drive a wedge between loved ones, far more a divider than a uniter.

Sure, one might become an overman, but one might also contract syphilis and slip into madness (see: Nietzsche), become an alcoholic degenerate (see: Fitzgerald...or most any other good writer), fall into irrecoverable drug addiction (see: Burroughs, Kerouac, or other Beat writers), or, my favorite, take one’s own life with shotgun on a sunny Sunday morning (see: Hemingway).

It seems the deeper one crawls inside one’s head, the darker the place seems to be. Is not this the stronger will to death?

Dogmatism, I Love To Hate Thee

2006-11-01T21:29:00.000-08:00

I admit it; like a rubber-necker to a fender bender on the shoulder of the highway, I love to internally gawk at the dogmas of other people. Please, please, do not throw back at me my own sins in this area; I am way ahead of you, but even scripture infers that one is able to see through the plank in their own eye...even if this is not the wisest move. So, I turn my head sideways, squint a little (so as to see around my plank better) and enjoy the show of the dogmatic.

Today, before basketball practice, we had a team "devotional" (and I use this word very, very loosely) led by one of the assistant coaches. Let me pull back the curtain on this particular coach. You all know him, you have perhaps been him at some point in your life; at the very least, you Baptists (or ex-Baptists, as the case may be) have gone to church or school with him. He's the hyper-militant-abrasive-, and, yes, dogmatic super-duper Calvinist that has all of the answers wrapped up in some ready made sermonette that was preached to him in a 4 part series. He is armed with just enough Scripture and jargon to be dangerous, but not enough to be taken seriously as an expert; this, however, does not prevent him from being an all-encompassing "answer-man" for the faith and a beacon of light for those "wayward sinners" that dare to believe in things like Catholic Christianty (liberals). Like I said, you have met him.

He spent 20 minutes or so detailing salvation and Calvinist doctrine, which was by and large tolerable, but then the real fun started. Our players began to ask questions, real questions. When asked about the logic behind his faith......you could hear the crickets singing. When questioned about the validity of the Bible....more of the same. It was an unarmed man running into the fray with only the sword of "I have experienced it, and that means that it is true". It was a slaughter, in my opinion. Once on his heals he reverted to the ever trusty bashing of Catholics and Episcopals as Godless wannabe's, the stance of himself having attained some measure of perfection that we lowly sorts should strive towards, and those with legitimate questions as faithless rejectors.

Are dogmas not great from the outside. Was it that long ago that I held firmly to the belief that alcohol was evil? Did most Calvinists not once hold opposite views as tested truths? Have the particulars of my faith not be transformed time and again? Why then do we insist that our newest insights are the only truths acceptable? Where is the humilty? Is there not room for error or change? Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not advocating relativism, just relativity and change. I hold to as few "isms" as possible, but there seems a dire need to adopt a stance that allows for growth and maturity in our beliefs.

I have no great declarations or the strength to ramble incoherently (lucky you); just fired up tonight. Good night.

Smells Like Fun

2006-10-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

Last night was something out of the ordinary and great in the midst of this semester...pure fun. This has been homecoming week, and part of the festivities is the annual Powder Puff Football Game (or “gameS”, as the case may be). I got the opportunity to coach the 9th and 10th grade girls against the 11th and 12th grades, coached by the school board president. I practiced with my team several times this week, and we clearly outmatched the others in speed and throwing accuracy. Thanks to the brilliant coaching schemes (or flat-out athletic-superiority of a bunch of 15 yr-olds) we won 21-14.

The true highlight of the evening came next. After weeks of trash talking and grandstanding, the faculty took on the parents in a flag football game. There were about 20-30 parents roaming their sideline compared with our 8-10, but there was something else strikingly different about the two teams. How should I put this? Let’s say that the majority of their sideline was packing a few extra pounds around the midsection, and their median age was just shy of my parents’. We, on the other hand, had 3 20-somethings, two of which have just recently graduated from college after playing NCAA baseball, and myself who exercises religiously. After that, we had our athletic director who can throw the long ball to us streaking down the sidelines, and then we had a smattering of other people, some athletic, others not. It was clearly, clearly a mismatch.

I was expecting a beat-down of the parents at the hands of the faculty, but what I did not expect was the seriousness and competitive spirit of the parents. Let us just say that it was good that the stands are pretty far from the field, because it got nasty out there. Tempers flared, hits began to be leveled, arguments over calls abounded, but we only egged it on. What seemed particularly disturbing to them, and perhaps in poor taste on our part, was the barrage of Chad Johnson-like touchdown celebrations that we engaged in on most all of our 7 or so end zone trips. We thought they were genius, but it really, really hacked them off. We told them to keep us out of the end zone and it would not be a problem, but they didn’t seem to follow our advice.

We were pitching a shutout when I was flagged for tackling the quarterback too hard in the second half. In fairness, I had just been blindsided in the side of my head by a parent as I ran for a pass, so I was holding back anymore. I did not think I hit Coach Frazier very hard, but he is 50 and I’m 25, so the refs did not have much pity for me arguing my case. They scored on the next play; their ONLY score.

It was fun. This morning, in celebration of my Powder Puff girls victory, I bought doughnuts and we are taking 1st period off and hanging out. For at least 1 day I am not the meanest, worst, most boring teacher at St. Alban’s....actually my time as “cool” is running short, because we start reading Plato together next period. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Good Quotes

2006-10-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Proof that I have led my wife down a dark and dangerous path; she sent me a great quote she read that goes along with what she and I (and you) have been discussing of late.

"The true test of a first-rate mind is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald

I also, in the course of my reading of Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady, came across some fun dialogue between Isabel and her aunt.

" Now what's your point of view? she asked of her aunt. When you criticize evertying here you should have a point of view. Yours doesn't seem to be American - you thought everything over there so disagreeable. When I criticize I have mine; it's thoroughly American!"

"My dear young lady," said Mrs. Touchett, "there are as many points of view in the world as there are people of sense to take them. You may say that doesn't make them very numerous! American? Never in the world; that's shockingly narrow. My point of view, thank God, is personal!

Worth Your Time

2006-10-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

For my 11/12 Grade English class we have begun reading This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I may have mentioned this before, but I really enjoy Fitzgerald. This book in particular is great, because it is written in such an over-the-top manner, as if each line is poetry. He looked back on this early novel late in his career with a slight sense of embarassment on account of this poetic-form, but I think that is what makes it great.

Where Catcher in the Rye shows the growing of a young, disturbed adolescent in one manner, this shows the budding of an aesthete and writer. It is a peek behind the curtain at the young psyche of Fitzgerald himself, accenting his eccintricities beautifully, and it explains quite well how he came to be who he was as an author.

After just coming out of Hemingway for the first half of the semester, this is such a refreshing dose of intellectual stimulation. Well worth you time, if I might say so.

A Blog For None and All

2006-10-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

A [Blog] For None and All

I steal this title from another book of Friedrich Nietzsche’s entitled Thus Spoke Zarathustra (though his replaces Book for my Blog). It is what he calls his culminating work, and the pinnacle of his philosophic work throughout his career. Different from everything else that he had written, which previously had consisted entirely of essays, treatises, and aphorisms, in this book he wrote in Germanic verse, a sort of poetic-prose. It reads more like a novel than philosophy, but he uses this medium to express differently, and one might argue better, what it was that he had been building for in the preceding 10-15 years of writing. As an advertisement, for those who do not read philosophy and have not desire to do so, the reading of Zarathustra this might serve as painless exposure to an alien world.

There seems to be a general misreading of this blog by many, and so I steal this subtitle in relation to this blog, because I believe it follows it the spirit of the discourse that Nietzsche was attempting in Zarathustra and other of his later works. Let me explain the context. Zarathustra is a prophet who has secluded himself in the mountains until he is full of wisdom, and he descends from his mountain to preach the gospel of free-spiritedness to the masses. First, Nietzsche lacks greatly for humility, and so the disgust one feels towards the arrogance of this book, shown in the fact that he sees himself in the Zarathustra role should be overlooked in order to enjoy it and mine it for truth. Secondly, though I am using the spirit of this book as a guide for my blog, I do no place myself in the role of Zarathustra in the same way. I am not so foolish as to believe that I am so overfilled with knowledge that I should descend from my lofty position and preach to the herds; rather, I am perhaps only one who likes the sound of his own voice (or typing) too much.

Spirit of Deception

The end of Part 1 of Zarathustra reads,

"When Zarathustra had said these words he became silent, like one who has not yet said his last word; long he weighed his staff in his hands, doubtfully. At last he spoke thus, and the tone of his voice changed.

Now I go alone my disciples. You too go now, alone. Thus I want it. Verily, I counsel you: go away from me and resist Zarathustra! Even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you.

The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must also be able to hate his friends.

One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you want to pluck at my wreath?

You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you.

You say you believe Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? You are my believers – but what matter all believers? You had not yet sought yourselves: and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little.

Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.

Verily, my brothers, with different eyes shall I then seek my lost ones; with a different love shall I then love you.

And once again you shall become my friends and the children of a single hope – and then shall I be with you the third time, that I may celebrate the great noon with you.

And that is the great noon when man stands in the middle way between beast and overman and celebrates his way to the evening as his highest hope: for it is the way to a new morning.

Then will he who goes under bless himself for being one who goes over and beyond; and the sun of his knowledge will stand at high noon for him.

“Dead are all gods: now we want the overman to live” – on that great noon, let this be our last will.

Thus spoke Zarathustra."

Going beyond the overman references and the death of gods, laying aside for now what exactly constitutes the great noon, I find something concrete and worth our latching onto in, believe it or not, the humility found in the passage. In fact, throughout Nietzsche’s later works, and I am thinking specifically of Human, All Too Human, he practices a spirit of humility that I think Christians, Buddhists, and Atheists alike would do well to adopt.

He calls for his disciples to go away from him, to resist him, and even to deny Zarathustra. What is his reasoning: perhaps I have deceived you.

This spirit of deception is indeed the spirit of this blog; not deception in the sense of willful misleading, for I feel my greatest calling is, as Augustine artfully rendered, to redeem truth as from its unjust possessors. The deception I write of is that potential deception that accompanies my every word and thought. I lack not for self-confidence bordering on arrogance, but I find it to be the most disgusting of hubris to think anyone capable of any concrete, absolute knowledge that is not subject to change somewhere in the future. By virtue of my humanity, like Nietzsche, I recognize a certain frailty and insufficiency of mind, and I cannot move beyond this, even were I to will it with all of my faith and might.

Invariably someone will retort to this spirit with the sledge-hammer of scripture, making commentary on the fact that it is certain, unchangeable...etc. My reply would be thus: God is indeed unchangeable, by virtue the definition of God he cannot be otherwise, but my perception of that perfection and unchangeableness is faulty at best, and perhaps dead-ass wrong at worst. To not admit the ambiguities and outright contradictions in Scripture is to delude oneself. Much of our scriptural knowledge comes by virtue of interpretation, and to claim one interpretation as fact, while denigrating another as fiction, is to be outside of the spirit of interpretation.

I am not belittling Scripture nor its interpretations, and I am not saying that Scripture is not built upon the true words of God, but I am pointing out the fact that the human receptor, which is the mind, is subject to fallibility, and we should in no way be ashamed of this. This gives us reason to attend seminaries and study Scripture, because were it were cut-and-dry it would be no more alive than a dictionary.

God’s Word is not subject to error, but our comprehension of it is; so too is our judgment on every matter. Thus do I believe we should all adopt a stance that allows for the spirit of deception that pervades all human endeavors.

For None and All

For these reasons I believe this blog to be for none and all. For none, because it may very well be garbage, every word of it. Maybe my words are nothing more than the mouthpiece of the devil, and you should condemn it as the blasphemous ramblings of a man, like Faust, who has sold his soul to the devil in exchange for some meaningless knowledge. Maybe you are of the persuasion, religious or otherwise, where the potentiality of error/deception is unacceptable and heretical, and to you I say that this blog may not be for you, and if all who read this fall into that category, truly it is for none.

I would hope it to be for all, though. In the same way that I think that the Mavs are the greatest NBA team around, and that everyone should love them, I recognize that many will not. So, too, do I think that what I write is true, and that it should be applied by all (why else would I write it), but I have no hopes for that actuality. No, there are matters of preference and differences of belief, and, as was said before, I might very well be shown wrong later.

So, if inclined, read and join the conversation, and let us mutually shine the light on one another’s deceptions and hypocrisy’s, truth and beauty.

Unscholarly, I Know

2006-10-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

My semester has become quite involved, and so I am going to write a bit without the aid of texts and objective-"proofs" (for lack of a better term). I am troubled a bit by a friend's trouble with the Christian's role in the public square, and I wonder if it is on account of a fundamental difference of belief, and therefore irreconcilable.

I can think of several reasons that I have begun building a life within this "square", and I will focus on one or two, but my first question is this: what choice do I have? It is not as if I can pack my bags and move somewhere else. I suppose I might become a hermit of sorts and refuse to exist within the confines of this world, but this seems no more logical than to say that I am going to play football while only observing the rules of hockey. For better or worse, whether I like it or not, this world is indeed my home for the forseeable future, and my responsibility as a Christian is to live responsibly in it, not retreat from it.

How does one do this?

I will not presume to have the answers to this question, at least not entirely, but I do have some theories and musings towards this end. What of the "cultural mandate" that is so often spoken of in Christian circles? When we (humans) were created in the garden we were given charge to "be fruitful and multiply", which seems to be a concept that many Christians have taken up with gusto, but we were also called to "subdue" the Earth, which seems conversely to be the great forgotten-mandate of modern Christendom. Without going in to details better elucidated by authors greater than I, Adam subdued through using his creative and cognitive powers (e.g. naming the animals), but for some reason we (mod. Xian) do not see this any longer as our call. We will birth 15 children in an effort to fulfill a part of the original call of the believer, but we will not allow ourselves to be involved in the other half.

Why?

Fear? - Are we afraid of getting swept into the raging sea of "worldliness", and so we hide behind the shutters of faith, daring not to emerge from our cocoon until the saviour comes to claim us back from our bondage on Earth? If we dared to immerse ourselves deep within the arts, understanding form, beauty, symmetry and composition, would we then drift from God, or might we value he and his world all the more? If we began to study the sciences seriously, perhaps even reconciling Darwinian evolution with our faith through a process of reasonable calculation, would that make us "less" of a believer, or might it bring us closer to God? If through philosophy we might come to a reasonable rendering of what most pursue as a fanatical-opiate, are we abandoning the faith, or are we rescuing it from the obscurity into which it has sunk?

St. Augustine, in his De Doctrina Christiana gives a beautiful rendering of reasons behind pursuing non-Christian studies. Strongest among these is his belief that it augments our knowledge of God and scripture. He gives great examples of natural studies, such as zoology, that served as guides to deeper scriptural understanding, and I am sure that most would resound with a hearty "Amen" at this ideal. Here is the problem, though: This requires immersion into "worldly" things.

One cannot in intellectual-honesty pursue studies in the common half-assed manner and claim to know what one is talking about. Even if one claims that "outside" study should only be pursued for the sake of scriptural understandings, a claim neither I nor Augustine would hold to, then these pursuits must be done in an appropriate manner. Far too many preachers on Sunday morning have read no more of Darwin or Nietzsche than was required for the "proving" of their preconceived theories, yet they berate them from the pulpit, belittling them as if they understood them. It is shameful.

The problem is that it would require hours, days and years of study to come to a clear understanding of these men, and this is time that many are unwilling to give because it detracts from the "true calling of the believer". The solution seems to either embrace the dark side and pursue a liberal education, filled with arts, sciences, and philosophy among others, or to flee from the world entirely, not referencing that which we choose not to understand. How then are we to stand before the Creator in good conscience, having discarded the mandate to subdue the world.

Instead, we loathe the world, shaking our head at its movies andtelevision, and shaking our fists at its politicians. What would happen if we no longer settled for mediocre (at best) Christian alternatives? What if, instead of putting out the next "Left Behind" or another in the long list of forgettable Christian media, one were to write the next 'great American novel' from a Christian worldview? Whereas one alienates Christianity from society, the other bridges the gap. The problem with infiltrating any of these problemed mediums is that it will require getting oneself "mired in the filth" to a degree.

I am tired.....so I am going to bed.....more later.

The rumors of my soul’s demise are at least partially exaggerated.

2006-10-06T05:16:00.000-07:00

To help bolster my case that I am indeed a pious Christian at heart, buried somewhere beneath this humanistic-shell, let me share with you the Bible study that I have been engaged in this last week.

For my Modern World class, a class, which, ironically, is so polluted with the trappings of modernity (mainly technology and positivistic thought) that it is sucking the life out of the proposed academic critique of modernity, we read Immanuel Kant’s “Speculative Beginning of Human History”.

In this treatise Kant, a German-pietist by all accounts makes commentary on Genesis, questioning whether one can be justified in adding speculation to human history. He opens with,

“Surely it is permissible to insert speculations into the progression of a history in order to fill gaps in the reports, because what comes before, as a distant cause, and what follows, as effect, can give a fairly reliable clue for discovering the intervening causes so as to make the transition comprehensible.” (109)

In other words, he questions whether doing what Milton does in Paradise Lost or, to be current, what Mel Gibson does with the crucifixion is allowable. Is it so wrong to fill in the gaps where explicit history leaves off?

What follows is an explanation of the fall of man viewed through the lense of reason and imagination alone. Mankind is endowed with reason, and ruled by this inherited nature he is content. He and his wife are unashamed, comfortable, and well provided for. Instinct, provided from their birth, guides them.

Desire in the form of imagination precipitated his downfall. Rather than contentment with what man had, he began comparing different options, and soon greed and luxury took control. He writes,

“Perhaps a mere fruit whose appearance resembled that of others that he had tasted and found agreeable tempted man to experiment… He discovered in himself an ability to choose his own way of life and thus not to be bound like other animals to only a single one.”

“…He stood as if at the edge of the abyss; for besides the particular objects of desire on which instinct had until now made him dependent, there opened to him an infinitude of them…and it was now impossible for him to turn back from his once taste state of freedom to his former servitude.” (112-3)

The remainder of the essay gets somewhat convoluted, but a central point is made that the unsocial behaviour that results from man’s withdrawal into himself actually brings about societal good. In this way, one can make a fortunate fall argument, exalting Providence in the process.

In another of Kant’s essays, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent” he explains this more clearly, writing,

“Man wills concord; but nature better knows what is good for the species: she wills discord. He wills to live comfortably and pleasantly; but nature wills that he should be plunged from laziness and inactive comfort into work and hardship, so that he will in turn seek by his own cleverness to pull up from them."

"The natural impulse to do this – the sources of unsociability and of thoroughgoing resistance that give rise to so much evil but also drive men anew toward further exertions of their powers… - indicates the design of a wise creator, not the hand of a malicious spirit who fiddled with the creator’s masterful arrangement or enviously spoiled it.” (21-2)

What Kant leaves us with, contrary to popular opinion, is an optimistic potential outcome for humanity. He is by no means wholly optimistic, and he seems to leave room for man to step from his perch over the abyss back into barbarism, but there is yet potential for good. There is, by virtue of a providential order a move from bad to good in human history, and it is thus that he advocates the social, rational morality for which he is so famous. This move towards good is not achievable entirely, and so maybe bad to good is a bit of a misnomer; instead, he says we move from worse to better.

Why You Should Care?

Do I lose my Jesus-card completely when I herald Kant as a spiritual handmaid, along with Nietzsche, Thoreau and, God forbid, Darwin? – or is there possibly room for them under the larger umbrella of Christian formation?

I make not secret that my bias is toward these thinkers, and maybe this is owing in part to the same spirit within me that enjoyed skipping high school because it was illicit; nonetheless, I hold this to be entirely beneficial to a believer in much the same way as those other thinkers previously spoken of.

There are a host of comments I could make about this, but today I think I will limit it to the comfort of them. It is just nice to point out some reasonableness amidst those areas that call for faith in that which is unseen. One finds himself on the verge of bowing out when he constantly must confront the Nietzsche’s of the world (both past and present) with the miraculous.

Miracles, by their very nature defy rationality. It is just not reasonable that a burning-bush spoke the words of God, that the Earth stood still, or that a Jewish god-man in the 1st century rose from the dead in atonement for our sins. I stand in support of the miraculous, but touting these arguments alone makes for crack-pots and the zealots destined for late-night TBN. Is God not also the God of rationality?

Christianity is too often laughed out of the public-square, because its adherents refuse to dialogue with the world on the world’s terms.

I say, “Cheers!” to the reasonable.