mccarthyism

in chicago. we’ve been here about a month, and it’s really been pretty quiet. we miss a lot of people. our apartment is very small, and the area very suburban and discouraging. we've explored chicago a good deal, though as yet we haven’t found much that’s exciting. no money to spend. riding the el was enjoyable. saw the university of chicago’s campus which was very lovely, and the frank lloyd wright house on campus there, which was lovely too and which made me wish i was good at a lot of things i’m no good at.

i’m taking remedial greek, too much too fast for my poor mind i fear. wish i had kept up better with it. i was a poor student in college. but i do have a decent grade which will get me into my new testament courses without being set back. disappointed (but not surprised) to report that my study habits have not improved much over the past two years; i’ve been up too late most nights. not much about the new school excites me at the moment except, oddly enough, the prospect of hard work and diligence. i'm also looking forward to the cold weather.

jenni has started work and will start school soon. i hope she'll be happy here.

reading:
saul bellow: humboldt’s gift

listening:
sun kil moon
low

“losing touch with everyone…”

6-18-09
5:55pm

Off work, and alone in the apartment. Jenni left this morning to her grandparents’ in North Carolina for the weekend. I’ve been putting in overtime every day this week and I’m pretty tired. One more day and then a quiet weekend. Supposed to go to Carson and Sarah’s Saturday night. It’s too bad we’ve gotten to know them just before we leave for Chicago.

Reading the Lothlorien chapters of “The Fellowship of the Ring” just now, probably my favorite in the trilogy. “Namarië! Nai hiruvalyë Valimar. Nai elyë hiruva. Namarië! Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!” Why are the things I feel the most always in fantasy, in music I can’t enjoy without reservation, in images so quickly gone? The basic disconnect. If I could be perfectly objective, could really divorce myself from environment, presuppositions, and fear, then maybe that disconnect would drive me to some scary conclusions. But no it wouldn’t, either. To divorce oneself entirely from all context, from all others: from, in my case, the Church, whatever that has or hasn’t meant to me; would be to abandon myself to utter subjectivity. The distrust I have of my own thought or speech when I’ve been separated from any immediate context, whether by a social situation, beer or tiredness, is not invalid I don’t think. It may be of value where it abolishes social or prideful inhibitions, sure, but whenever I’ve retreated into myself, selfishly or otherwise, and let my mind have free run of itself, I have little to no confidence. I need constructs, however faulty; my mind needs paths to follow.

We’re supposed to have glimpses, fleeting images of what’s to come. And I guess that’s true – I suppose I do. But most times the spaces between stretch out broader and duller than I have the wherewithall to see beyond. Glimpses so fleeting they only tease, and belittle. “Memory is not what the heart desires.” If even in memory the fullness could be found. The heart desires more: and often, on the lathe, or driving to church, or sitting in the living room in the late afternoon, it despairs. I don’t ask much. Only for enough to get me through.

“Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!”


6-1-09
5:24pm

Here’s a letter I wrote to the Dean-o a couple of months ago. Parts of it summarize my thoughts over the past year quite well. This journal is getting terribly repetitive, which I guess is a little damning of my thought patterns. Oh well.

Dean,

I was going to send this via email, but I think there’s something to writing it out and mailing it. Not quite sure what it is, but it seems worthwhile.

Hm...there's a fine distinction to be made between the faith we've inherited, and the faith we participate in. You write that "the faith we've inherited is lacking...we've been given a piece and are expected to be content with just that piece." I can commiserate with that kind of thinking. We sustain, in our daily experience, wounds from the shortcomings of the institutional expression we've grown up in. We've been enculturated in it. After all, we’re products of fallen humanity, both cause and effect. But we also have, dwelling within us to animate and vivify, the Holy Spirit of God, the "perfecting cause" of the Trinity (as Lossky puts it), perfecting in us the perfect work of Christ, completed and all-sufficient. And that is not lacking at all. The writer of Hebrews encourages us to "strive to enter that rest" (4:11). This theological rest, the provision of Christ, is always waiting and eager for us to enter into it. It’s the picture of the rest, perfect, and of us, imperfect, struggling, persisting. You ask, "why it is that God keeps Himself such a secret?" I think it is not so much that God keeps himself a secret as that we cannot see him in our present state until we are made like Christ. We can't meet the gods face to face "till we have faces."

Because I don't think that true knowledge of God begins or ends with intellectual questions and answers, or with "right practice" (as in, the ideal worship service). It begins with a posture. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." In other words, the paradigm we've inherited may be faulty in many aspects, but the way forward is not through a search for "the right expression of the faith" (could we ever find it the way we've idealized it anyway?) but through a renewed participation in the perfect salvation we've recieved from God. Like I wrote in that piece you read, I don't believe truth to be external or dogmatic only, or even primarily (that is, a particular institution or expression of belief, other than the Church Universal of course) but internal and pneumatic. Without being the least spooky or pantheistic, I believe that the truth is within us. Obviously it is outside us as well, in natural theology, in the "God-breathed" Scriptures, in our brothers and sisters. But all these venues have to be interpreted, and interpretation is always subject to the human mind. "The kingdom that's within is true." Inward to the infinite microcosm of the Kingdom of God within us; outward to the macrocosm of the world and even the universe. For He fills everything in every way. An inner silent mystery, an outer clamoring reality. It must be both (since to deny one or the other you'd have to be some sort of Manichean); but it must begin within, in submission, in silence.

That's an awfully grand and arrogant way to start off a letter. I'm sorry...you just pulled my string I guess. Forgive my presumptuousness. It's certainly not my intent to "tell you how it is" - I barely understand any of that myself. Just what I've been thinking lately. As you know, I've thought a lot in the past months about Orthodoxy, and I have a big tendency to get all angsty and freak out, as though my decision is due tomorrow. But I've reached the conclusion that God is far more concerned with my heart, my inner response to his Spirit, than with what tradition of faith I allign myself with. You're right, of course, our inherited faith is imperfect. Frustratingly so. But there is no perfect tradition. Maybe one day I will find one which I believe is more accurate, more holy - fuller, I guess - than Evangelicalism. Maybe not. But it will always be the same Christ, the same work of redemption, and the same task laid on me. To strive to enter into that rest.

You said that one of the things you like about Evangelical thought is there is so much freedom to form your own convictions. I don't know that I can agree with you there...in fact, that is to me the scariest thing about the Evangelical paradigm. I don't want to form my own convictions. I don't trust my own mind that much, I guess. I'd rather let the true faith of the apostles and fathers form them, and I will just walk in them as best I can. Just a thought.

So Carson told me today that Joel is presenting a paper at the conference here in February. Any chance you were tagging along? Just wonderin. I will be presenting a paper on "Evangelical Patriotism and the Kingdom of God" - something I'm increasingly dreading. I do have strong feelings about that subject, but they're not very well developed and the more I've read on the subject the more bored I've gotten with it. I had a different idea - I wanted to do something on the apophatic vision of the East - but Carson suggested this as being more relevant to the subject matter of the conference. And he's right, of course, but I'm just not jazzed up about it. Maybe it will come.

Thanks very much for taking the time to write. I need this kind of interaction. It's funny how little time I spent in college talking with my friends about things that actually mattered. We were too busy talking smut and making fun of people. It seems like it was actually awkward to jump into something really serious a lot of the time. That's one of the reasons I've valued your friendship. Not that we didn't talk our share of smut too.

Take good care,
Ethan


My apologies to Dean for airing his private mail, to the three people who will ever happen across it.

I was pleased, at the time, with the previous entry as an admittedly incomplete but (I fancied) honest and fairly insightful summary of my own thought regarding the Biblical paradigm of truth. Since then I've had occasion to rethink it quite a bit and I find it has some glaring inconsistencies and imbalances. Rather than rewrite it, though, I'll just add a couple of editorial comments.

First, I wrote that "'internal and pneumatic' is a fair expression of my own reading of the New Testament". This was an overstatement of a position which was already something of an overreaction. Clearly, truth must be both internal and external, pneumatic and dogmatic. And so we find it to be in Scripture. This is so obvious as to be not worth saying: my intention was not to deny dogmatic (or even objective) truth in Scripture, but to suggest that the common evangelical teaching of "the Word" is out of balance, and that the internal, pneumatic aspect is often neglected. To make the truth purely dogmatic leaves us utterly at the mercy of our own interpretation of the text. But neither is there any concrete certainty in the indwelling Spirit. Our interpretation of external dogma is certainly flawed, but so is our obedience to the Spirit. Both the Spirit and the Scriptures are perfect and infallible; neither offers (what I seem to be so determined to find) a foolproof application of divine truth to our lives. We still "see through a glass darkly." It is no good trying to escape this tension, either by fancying that we can understand the Scriptures perfectly or by elevating the Church to infallibility. Both sides must be involved; but we don't have perfect access to either.

Second, my word study of "logos" was incomplete at best. It served its purpose in pointing out that in the New Testament the "Word" is not limited to Scripture alone (something we all knew already) - it didn't do much else. My intent was to show another aspect of the Word: the Word multiplying, growing, living and active, dwelling within us richly. To be convincing even on that level would require a much more comprehensive study.

So, it is back to work I guess. My persistent interest in this topic stems from a general discontent with the evangelical paradigm of truth. Ironically, the doctrine of sola scriptura seems to be inconsistent with Scripture itself, for the reasons I gave below. The evangelical placement of Scripture as the be-all end-all of divine revelation seems contrary to Scripture itself, and tends to put the believer at the mercy of his own interpretation of the text. This is complicated (rather than simplified) by the modern interpretive milieu. I can't help seeing sola scriptura as a reaction to modernism: a deduction from perceived necessity rather than an application of historical and recorded revelation.

An amendment to the previous post is forthcoming. At the time I was pretty pleased with it but looking back there are a few gaping holes in logic, as well as some things I'd like to add. I'll throw it up here when I find the time.

Meanwhile I have been working some overtime, and trying in between to finish up a paper I'll be presenting at this weekends' American Evangelicalism conference at TFC. A privilege, and one I hope I won't completely blow off. My paper is entitled "Evangelical Patriotism and the Kingdom of God" and I'm afraid it reflects my utter lack of interest in that topic. I'll be glad to have it over.

Reading:
Is there a meaning in this text?/Kevin VanHoozer
A good man is hard to find/Flannery O'Connor
Orthodox Theology/Vladimir Lossky

Listening:
The Cure, Low, Belle and Sebastian, ad infinitum, ab absurdum

Sleeping:
precious little

“The truth,” writes the apostle, “abides in us and will be with us for ever: grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love” (II John 2-3). I’ve given a fair amount of thought, sometimes a little frenzied and panicked, to the paradigm of truth in Scripture. For the Orthodox, the truth is “internal and pneumatic” versus (what they call) the “external and dogmatic” model in the West, whether seen in the Reformation formula sola Scriptura or the Catholic hierarchy of authority. As a good Evangelical (sic) I begin with Scripture. Do we find sola Scriptura there? Most importantly, what does the New Testament claim for itself?

While the Scriptures are “God-breathed” and “useful”, (II Tim. 3:16) they are never the fullest embodiment of truth. For that is always found in the person of Christ. Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), and “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (2:8). Of the three persons of the Trinity, the Son is revelation, communication, and that in human form (“bodily”); as such he is Truth for mankind. Of Scripture no such claim is made. At best the term “Word of God” has been muddied in popular evangelical culture, and applied far more freely than is warranted by the Scriptures themselves. For the Word of God is always Christ first and foremost, per John’s Prologue, and if it is also applied to the Scriptures, it is only as an expression of the fact that God’s self-revelation in Christ is present there in inspired form. (That is, “God-breathed”, a term which deserves a certain amount of attention.) The Word of God is a broader (but no less clearly defined) thing than I have been conditioned to believe. In Acts, the Word of God can “grow” and “multiply” (12:24, 19:20). It can “dwell richly” in the believer (Col. 3:16). And it is also present in the “tradition” which Paul exhorted the Corinthians to maintain (I Cor. 11:2, 23, 15:3), and later encouraged Timothy to guard (I Tim. 6:20, II Tim. 1:14). But how is this tradition maintained? Was it based solely in the apostles, so that it is no longer extant except in their writings? Or has it really been handed down to us through the Church, that is, the succession of true believers in whom dwell the Holy Spirit of God?

The truth cannot be made abstract; it cannot be limited to something written down, quantified, interpreted. It must be enacted. Against the “philosophies and human traditions” Paul places, not the Scriptures, but the redemptive work of Christ on the believers’ behalf (Col. 2:8-15). “You have come to fullness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority” (10). In Christ, Paul goes on, redemption was accomplished. In Christ we were circumcised “without hands”; in Christ we were buried and raised again through faith in the working of God (11-12). And in Christ were the principalities and powers “disarmed” (15) – those same principalities which comprise the human traditions, the philosophies, the elemental spirits of the universe (8). In other words, against all the human effort and teaching which mislead and construe, we have, not the Scriptures as such, but Christ, the penultimate Word. And not Christ as a mystic concept, either, but as a person, as the Person, in whose accomplished work we participate daily. We do not know an abstraction of truth, or a corpus of writings which must be interpreted. We know a Person (Philippians 3:9-10). “Authentic gnosis,” says Vladimir Lossky, “is inseparable from a charisma, an illumination by grace which transforms our intelligence. And since the object of contemplation is a personal existence and presence, true gnosis implies encounter, reciprocity, faith as a personal adherence to the personal presence of God Who reveals Himself.” The divine Word is not to be studied, so much as practiced, and in practice, substantiated and defended. In his second epistle, John warns us: “Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward (8)”. Paul adjures the Philippians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (2:12), and the writer of Hebrews tells us to “strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience” (4:11).

The divine Word, then, is not so much “understood” (intellectually) as submitted to, in obedience. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7). Apprehension of the divine begins with the right posture, the posture of faith. In Christ’s own teaching we often hear the formula, “he who has ears, let him hear” (Matthew 13:9, 43, elsewhere). The self-same revelation of Christ can both condemn and vivify, depending on the heart of its hearers (Matthew 13:11-17). In other words, the knowledge of the Word of Christ, whether its means be the Scripture or some other lesser venue, is dependent not on the right interpretation so much as on the condition of its hearers. Can one submit to a text? Is not the goal of reading or interpreting texts a mere intellectual understanding? But we submit to a Person.

This is a half-baked paradigm at best of the New Testament teaching on divine truth. Still, it’s what I am going on for the present. Which tradition best expresses it is a question I’ve troubled over for some time, but I am beginning to think that that is less important than my own persistence in it. To “convert” may or may not happen. Any decision now would be premature and rash. To enter (an evangelical) seminary, for better or for worse, will at least continue the process: not of the development of my mind, or of my own imminent “decision”, but of “looking to myself”. Come what may.

There was a narrow window of time when I was writing things that I can look back on now and be pleased with. For some reason that window has closed lately, and the odd thing is that what's closed it has been the progress of my mind, into new realms, new patterns of thought, new books I'm reading and ideas I'm having. I try to write about them, but I can never do them justice, so I end up frustrated. Strange. What happened? I used to be so much better at this.

I'm married, and living in Toccoa, probably the last year I'll spend here. And that's bittersweet. It's odd knowing that you're going to miss a place horribly very soon, but not being able to do anything about it, and in the meantime not being able to really appreciate it as it is. I work at a woodshop, for forty hours a week, making wood turnings on a CNC lathe. I enjoy it. Nothing I'd like to do for the rest of my life, but I won't be, so I don't have to worry. It is a lot of time to myself, a lot of time to occupy my thoughts. I try to be mentally productive. I've memorized some poems, some Hopkins and Macleish, as well as some Scripture. I've thought a lot about the Lord of the Rings, and just about every other novel I've loved. I tell the stories again in my head, and sometimes get mixed up. I sing Belle and Sebastian songs to myself. Belle and Sebastian because, for one, I probably know more of their songs all the way through than any other band, and two, they are so persistently uplifting. I sing some other stuff too, and feel a little foolish when my co-workers walk past. I think about theology, about Ladd and Bonhoeffer, Lossky and Schmemann. I nick up my knuckles and sand the tips off my fingers. I do battle with the computer.

My parents live in town so we've enjoyed their proximity. Gives us another house to go to, the one I grew up in but no longer live in. I'm there now, in the stuffy heat from the wood stove after a long Sunday afternoon nap on the library couch. In about half an hour I'm going to drive across town and pick up Jenni from work. She gets in the car, gives me a kiss, and I ask her how her day was as her co-workers walk past us to their own cars. It's a tidy domestic scene. Tonight I think we're going to decorate our tree. Funny how little I have to do these days, and yet how little time I have for reading. There's always something.

Here's a comprehensive list of what I've read in the last month or two, and what I'm still reading now:

Poetry and Experience, Archibald Macleish
Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, with Jenni. We've been reading it aloud and we're just past halfway in the second book.
Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Daniel B. Clendenin
Orthodox Theology, Vladimir Lossky
Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury
Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Plague, Albert Camus
The First Circle, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Adam of the Road, Elizabeth Janet Gray
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

And to go with it a list of music I've particularly enjoyed since we've moved into the new place.

A mix of British Sea Power B-sides and EPs from Muffy, really great
Heaven or Las Vegas, The Cocteau Twins
Feathers, Dead Meadow
Trust, Low
The Curtain Hits the Cast, Low
Things We Lost in the Fire, Low
If You're Feeling Sinister, Belle and Sebastian
Tigermilk, Belle and Sebastian
The Boy With the Arab Strap, Belle and Sebastian
Another Day on Earth, Brian Eno
Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
The Best of Simon and Garfunkel
Diary, Sunny Day Real Estate
Old Mogwai stuff, also from Muffy

A couple of boring old lists to bore the two people who probably read this.

There is a lot on my mind and a lot I'd like to try and write it out. I'll see if I can't do some of that in the near future. In the meantime Jenni is getting off work.

"By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.

"A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish-dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves this dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

"God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians which his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together.

"When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first the accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Life Together"

It's been a long time since I've written anything on here, I know. I haven't been so much busy as preoccupied, if that makes sense. I'm not really busy now, but I am preoccupied, so I'm not going to write much.

Preached last Sunday at Foothills. I felt like it went well, despite my own deep misgivings about the whole preacher-text paradigm. In my opening prayer I asked that God would forgive me for misrepresenting him in any way. That will have to do for now.

Muffy and I have been playing some music up at the old studio in the West Building. pretty different from Contrail but I do like it a lot. He is writing really terrific stuff. It's a little bit darker than I tend to like: more random and directionless. But it is fun, and stretches me musically. We've still got a lot of work to do. Hopefully we'll get a few good shows out of it in the coming months. Can't say how much I would enjoy that.

"Rowsby Woof and the Fairy Wogdog"

Reading:
"Orthodox Theology" Vladimir Lossky
"Life Together" Dietrich Bonhoffer
"Dandelion Wine" Ray Bradbury
"The Lord of the Rings" Tolkien, with Jenni

been living stubbornly in the past, and a little bit in the future, reluctant to live in the moment out of impatience and boredom. i'm tired of it. i really don't want to go on this way. i am frustrated, though, with people, with circumstances, and especially with that ever-present divide between life as i've idealized it and life as it persistently is. tired of that, too. that is a selfish thing to think and a selfish thing to write. i do long for the kingdom of our Lord in the flesh. i long for what i don't understand. dear Christ, grant me courage, persistence and eyes to see. amen.

dean and i went fishing this afternoon on a little river behind the property of some friends at crestmont. a beautiful place. clear brown water full of bass, the dense green of late summer. a couple of cokes and deep quiet. dean caught one sizable bass, while i came up empty as usual. thoroughly enjoyable, though. as enjoyable a time as i've had this summer. i'm going to really miss that kid.

another chill evening in aliquippa, keeping tally with the braves via MLB gameday and reading a little bit of solzhenitsyn on the side. still no score in the third, with jurrjens on the mound for atlanta. his control is a tad shaky this evening which worries me. he needs to settle down and give us a good chance. and on our side we've got to give him a little run support.

the solzhenitsyn ("the first circle") is good but slow to start. he is always worth the effort once you get a hundred pages in or so, but as a russian he is bound by some national agreement to write only long novels with slow starts. his characterization is lights out as a rule. it's thoughtful fiction; you always get a lot to take with you. he doesn't so much create as show you a very real world, intricate and believable. it takes a fair amount of work, of self-investment, but it rewards you richly. i was surprised when i read "cancer ward" by how touching the ending was, with kostoglotov in the town, and then on the train. so perfectly handled. i think of that when i think of real aesthetic experience - the emotional impact is really almost incidental to the action, to what solzhenitsyn is trying to accomplish. it is a byproduct of how real the story is, and how much he has invested in it all along. nothing the least bit artificial. so i will stick with "the first circle" in spite of the difficulty of all those russian names and complicated politics.

it always feels good to be at the end of a camp day. camp days kick my butt. i wake up on mornings that we have camp with a nervous hollow in my chest. i'm going to stick it out this summer but i won't lie, i don't much enjoy it. working with headstrong, smartass junior highers. it's because i don't enjoy it that i've been forced to get out of myself a little bit, to be a person i'm not accustomed to being. i still couldn't say just how much i've learned but it has been a great thing, i know, and i'm very grateful. just terribly stressful at times.

a lovely 3-RBI double for escobar in the fifth gives jurrjens a little cushion. now we'll just follow our noses home.

good night, campers, see you in the morning. i might put another 20 pages or so of solzhenitsyn behind me before i check out.

growing a beard. i guess it was just time. i'm still in the scruffy stages but i think it's going to wear pretty well. makes me look a good deal older, which is something i've needed i suppose. i've graduated from undergrad and begun to move on a little bit and i guess it was time for a change. going to grow my hair out a little bit too.

also i'm getting married in about four months. yea, getting married. you're telling me. it should be alright.

listening:
fleet foxes, eno, mogwai, joy division.

reading:
singer, solzhenitsyn, macleish. i am in such a rut honestly.

I'm in Aliquippa, PA. Temperatures have been in the mid-90s and our house has no air conditioning. What a convenient invention that was. It's easy enough to talk about the idol the west has made of convenience but this week I've begun to waver a bit. It's the long, sweaty nights that do it I think.

I've surprised myself by feeling a little skeptical of the levels of spirituality here. Is it just cynicism? I have to wonder. My idea of faith, of the church, always seems to be a little bigger than the circles I find myself in. Or maybe it's smaller? Most likely it is caused largely by my own arrogance and pettiness; but at the same time I feel the need of something else, an aesthetic clarity, a transcendence. Which is not to say that this isn't a terrific place, or that these aren't wonderful people. The week I've spent here has been both refreshing and deeply convicting. At our prayer service last night I was moved at the sincerity of these people, and the reality of their faith, it's strong connection with the world. Joel and I had an interesting conversation a few nights ago in which we admitted that there are no perfect churches, no perfect communities. The ideal which I've nurtured and hoped to live out someday is pretty unrealistic. It will have to wait until the eschaton. In the meantime, what do I want? Higher church? Eastern Orthodoxy?

For now, I'm here, in this place. I'm beginning to be afraid that my own carefully conditioned ideal really does not exist in this reality, and it's from this frustration that my cynicism comes. Either way it's couched in my own pride, a pride I almost cannot bear to root out. It's just that I'd like my highest ideals of beauty to come from the Church, not from secular poets and artists, or even from Christians of different branches of the faith. Odd that the reasons I don't convert to these "other branches" of the faith are intellectual ones.

Christianity as I want it to be, versus the transcendence which it must be, by definition. Such a fine line - too fine for me, in my present condition, to make such a judgment call. The thing to do is to press on toward my ideal, and in the meantime to attend with discipline to the task at hand, in hopes of greater light, of clarity through service. I've been thinking about Benson's "Graven Ideologies," especially the chapters on Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion. The transcendent Other making its demand on the Self: the loving violence. And because the other is intrinsically foreign to me, greater than me, it requires faith. I cannot "approve" or "disapprove" of it since any act of approval places me as the arbiter of what is acceptable and what is not. So it really is a kind of violence, and no less painful for being for my own ultimate good.

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

Listening:
Red House Painters
Low
Sonic Youth

Reading:
Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories
Kevin VanHoozer: Is there a meaning in this text?
Archibald MacLeish
Gerard Manley Hopkins

It's hot summertime in Pittsburgh. Just finished up tour with Contrail about a week ago. With about four shows to go we realized that they would most likely be the last shows we ever play. Matt has been accepted into medical school at Virginia Tech and has decided to go in this fall. And in the end I think he's made the right choice. Either way it was his choice to make and it's not for me to say anything one way or the other. But it has been a little tough to come to grips with the thought that it really is all over with. Played our last show in Chapel Hill. Mediocre, and very depressing. We drove all the way home that night and got in at around eight in the morning. I guess we've always known that this time was coming but in the end it has come all too abruptly, and just when we were gaining momentum, writing better than ever before, playing better concerts. There may be other musical projects in my future, but nothing like this band. This was my band. Thinking about all the songs we've written, all the songs we might have written. Places gone, people met. I've been in this band for a long time. We've tried to make beautiful music, as best we could. Sometimes we have.

Bought Low's "The Curtain Hits the Cast" in Chapel Hill. It's a beautiful record. Low has helped to define my own approach to music as much as any other band. Nothing extra, with great attention to detail. A great sense of mystery. I've been listening to it over and over and over.

One, or two, or three
bring praise to thee,
or welcome ceasing death
without renewal.
The reach of life, backward
into my own clamoring strife
(I knew you were here, I saw your signature
I saw the moving leaves, saw the closing door)*
is hope unconfirmed,
but neither denied.
Rather, crucified.
Crucified, and then interred:
the incarcerated word.

*These lines are taken verbatim from Lee Bozeman's song, "The four quartets"

a good pleasant evening, spent reading at charles' house. i read some of benson's "graven ideologies" for my contemporary philosophy class. good, challenging reading, of the sort i need to be doing a lot more often. listened to interpol, talked with charles, and after he left, enjoyed being alone for a couple of hours. read a little more of solzhenitsyn's "cancer ward," the chapter called "bad luck all around." i was touched by the ending, the scene between dyomka and asya. they're so sad, so misguided. such gratuitous pain, and yet its very very real and i can empathize. all the senseless pain in the world, all the people who are so wrong, who've brought it on themselves usually, but i can understand them and i can pity them. sometimes it feels like there's no one i couldn't love in an instant, out of deep pity and reciprocity; reciprocity flowing from the very fact that i can no more know their pain than they can know mine. then there are other days when i judge everyone i see angrily, dispassionately. and so i reciprocate.

going to watch a movie with jenni, and maybe practice later on with the fellas. it's a terrific semester. it really is.

1:39am.
This semester has been treating me fairly well so far. Fifteen hours feels awfully light compared to the eighteen or more I've been floating for the past couple of years. I actually don't have homework due every single day. The downside is that I've been enjoying my free time just a little bit too much - leaving projects till the last minute, putting off reading. But it doesn't bother me. I just have to pass five classes and I'll graduate, in only three months. Crazy.

I should probably be asleep right now. It's after one and I still need to run over my notes for Sunday School tomorrow morning. But I like staying up, and I drank a coffee and a Coke at work tonight. I remember David Bloomer telling me that he had started going to sleep at ten and waking up at 5:30. "I'm not a kid anymore," he said. "I can't be always staying up late and sleeping in. I've got to grow up." I respect that; a great deal, actually. But the pleasure of staying up in the quiet small hours still outweighs the dragging tiredness I'll feel tomorrow in church. What's a little discomfort, right?

Thinking a lot today about the next year or so. Today, laying sod with my Grandpa out at his property, I tried to plan out how the next six months are going to pan out financially. I had thought about selling my car; had actually decided to, but now it looks like it won't be necessary. I guess I'm relieved. I do like my car, although I was warming up to the idea of having about three grand in the bank and no more insurance payments creeping up on me, no more gas to buy. It's growing up. David Bloomer is right: we're not kids anymore. And it's that thought, more than anything else, which I've been facing over the past several weeks. I'm full of doubts about myself: my own ability to deal with bills, with seminary, with all of it. And it’s so close, just around the corner.

I finished my book last night, Wendell Berry's "A Place on Earth"; all 550-odd pages. It's satisfying to finish any novel of that length, but for me the satisfaction was tempered a good deal by a growing frustration with Berry in that novel. For one thing, the whole book felt very much like an early attempt. For literary quality, I prefer "Old Jack" by a long ways. And I'm ok with that; it's to be expected. What bothered me most was his tone in the novel, and the way he developed characters. I felt that all of his characters were cast in his own image. He likes his characters because they're all him; they all fit, either positively or negatively, into his mold of how the world should be. When they write letters, or talk, they all sound the same, down to the way they form sentences. Anything which strays outside of that mold (like his pathetic caricature of the Church) he is surprisingly vindictive of. Don't mistake me; he's got many, many good things to say. And maybe he did straighten some things out later in his career; reconsider them, or at least flesh them out a little more. My parents got me a book of his essays for Christmas and I've been working my way through them now and again. They, too, seem not so much wrong as incomplete. For him the Church, and economics, environmentalism, etc., are primarily concerned with the earth in a very temporal sense. I have to wonder how he takes such verses as I John 2:15, "The world is passing away, and the lust of it." Pastor Monty has often frustrated me by seeming to make the Kingdom of God out to be something predominantly future: our hope as believers, our great reward. To me the parables of Christ seem to be emphasizing something far more immediate and imminent than that: "The Kingdom of God is at hand." But Wendell Berry makes the opposite mistake. His faith is so much concerned with the immediate as to despise the eternal. "A Place on Earth" is by no means a Christian novel. It is actually fairly hostile to Christianity; or at least to the distortion of Christianity which it portrays. I'm talking more about his essays here, with the novels I've read to help inform and illustrate them. It's a beautiful picture he paints, but it is an inconsistent and unrealistic one. The novel ended on a hopeful note, but I had to wonder where the hope was coming from given the philosophy leading up to it. The Kingdom of God must be concerned with the eternal to be of any value at all. It is this transcendence which gives meaning to the every day struggle of life on the earth. But (and Wendell Berry is right here), we still live on the earth, and if our actions do not engage and address the plane on which our lives are lived out, we have missed the entire point. It is the very eternality of the Kingdom of God which makes it so concerned with the every day; for our lives are, in spite of their appearance of mundanity, filled with the eternal.

Or something.

Musical Rediscoveries:
Low: Things we lost in the fire
Interpol: Turn on the bright lights

i've got class in an hour, the first class period of my last semester. i spent the morning running around, doing errands. i went to the bank, the library, bought gas, dropped off my drums at our practice space, lined up some hours for myself on the grounds crew for this semester. i feel fairly productive and also happy, knowing it's an light semester for me this spring. i've been feeling like a senior, with so much more to look forward to, with plans elsewhere - just finishing up here. and yet i still like it here very much; i'm still taking comfort from the familiarity of these surroundings, this school where i've spent the last four years. i'm not in such a rush to get out - i'll be out soon enough; i'm already on my way out the door. just a few more classes to pass, a calm semester and a chance hopefully to pull myself together before everything that happens next. so it's a good place. i have burris this afternoon, and i like burris. i like his attitude.

a couple of nights ago as i was trying to say some prayers before bed it occurred to me again that life would be a great deal less complicated if we paid less attention to how we feel, or even what we think, and just concentrated on what needed to be done. its the american habit, i guess, to be preoccupied with feelings. you can get to the end of the day and feel completely shitty because of something that was told you, or for having seen yourself in some negative light, but if you look back at what you've done that day, how you've been faithful, the kind things you may have said or done, you can still be pleased. the christian life is not preoccupied with subjectivities but with actualities, with realities. the modern world concerns itself so much with the subjective and can do no better than doubt the real, the objective; the plane where our lives actually take place. for the apostle, it was "that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life...if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin." i'm going to try and keep that in my mind today as i go to class and tomorrow, and the day after. and the day after that.

listening:
saxon shore: four months of darkness
interpol: turn on the bright lights
jesus and mary chain: psychocandy

reading:
wendell berry: a place on earth

the semester is just about over, with only one more to go. i’m looking to apply at trinity in the next month or so, just as soon as i can get through the necessary standardized testing. the MAT. i won’t be starting for another year and a half, but i want to maximize my chance of getting scholarships and/or grants. most of my work is done for this fall, barring a couple small papers and final exams.

not much else to report at this juncture. i don’t much like living at home. too much commotion, late into the night, with nowhere to go. but i’ll be there probably for the next year, since i can’t justify paying for an apartment with so many pending financial obligations. i just want my own space. every day after dinner i try to think of somewhere to go and just sit, look at a book, do homework, dick around. but nowhere. i don’t ask much, and even still i’m unsatisfied. it probably reflects on my pessimistic outlook on life and general analness.

i’m going to be working in aliquippa, pennsylvania next summer, just north of pittsburgh, at a non-profit ministry that joel repic (a tfc graduate of a couple of years ago and former classmate of mine) has started. it’s an inner city ministry working with at-risk kids and their families. aliquippa was the site of huge steel mill which went under in the eighties, leaving the city a complete economic disaster. it will be a big challenge personally but i stand to learn a lot. dean, evan and i spent fall break in aliquippa with joel and his wife chelsea. dean has spent the last couple of summers there getting things started with joel and the rest of them, and he's pretty sold on it. i can’t lie that i was pretty taken with it myself. it’s a destitute place but there is a real sense of community among joel and his friends, a sense of purpose and resolve. the kingdom of God taking root among the poor and underpriviliged.

been trying to read more poetry, the gaping hole in my reading. hopkins, eliot and frost. slow going, of course. reading stuff that’s so dense (think the quartets) is initially very frustrating, just like writing it is. i was talking to a couple at lunch the other day who each confessed to hating poetry: spoken with an air of being above it, as in “i get art, just never cared for poetry. it’s just never worth bothering with the stuff.” the whole genre in one swell foop. i was pissed off for a while after that. how can anyone be that dense? naivete doesn’t account for it. this bible college i go to… sometimes i just don’t know anymore. my own efforts at writing over the past month or so have yielded some results, but it’s all pretty limited in scope. i seem to be writing the same stuff over and over. it’s such a discipline, just when you might be tempted to think of art as spontaneous or immediate. but there are a couple of new contrail songs which are really pretty, both in sound and components. i haven’t really enjoyed playing this much in a long, long time. maybe ever. we’ve got a show this weekend for the hometown kids and i really hope they turn out; if they do it could be a great night.

reading:
t.s. eliot: the four quartets
robert frost: in the clearing

listening:
new contrail shit

"But God's own descent" by Robert Frost

But God's own descent
Into flesh was meant
As a demonstration
That the supreme merit
Lay in risking spirit
In substantiation.
Spirit enters flesh
And for all it's worth
Charges into earth
In birth after birth
Ever fresh and fresh.
We may take the view
That its derring-do
Thought of in the large
Is one mighty charge
On our human part
Of the soul's ethereal
Into the material.

-frontspiece from "In the Clearing" (1962)

found this the other day, from 10-1-06:

another sunny sunday from the recesses of the west building. a purple and grey sky outside, homework and low/yo la tengo/my bloody valentine inside. a row of empty coke cans. i’ve got a greek paper due tomorrow at 1:30 and i don’t even know where to start.

last night i took jenni out to dinner and afterward we walked around tallulah gorge. she straightened her hair and put on perfume; it felt good to notice that. things are very natural and simple; we had a lot of good talk and sat for a long time in silence in the dusk looking over the gorge. i’m still not quite used to having a girlfriend but i’m getting more so; there’s no doubt i have a particularly wonderful girlfriend.

listened to luxury today and at work tonight i thought again about "black books," about the world, Babylon the great, ceaselessly bombarding us and bending us to its will. what a difficult thing it is to fight it, to make the unseen, constant choice within to shape one's life after something better, something innately hidden and disguised. the world clamors after the visible; it wants something tangible and immediate, while the Kingdom of God is by definition hidden and invisible, a matter of the heart, only partially manifest until the parousia. it has become increasingly hard to live in the hope of that Kingdom while the kingdom of this earth pervades every waking moment. i am a traitor many times over.

give up, just give it up
let them shape you as they will
DON'T SCREAM, DON'T SHOUT
be the lamb as its led out

they'll write this in the Book of Life above, i know
"capable of such great heights, such great lows"

from august 9:

summertime is drawing to an end, my last as a college student. that's a little strange to think about. but not REAL strange. there's so much change going on in my life right now, and so much more change directly ahead, that thoughts like these are commonplace. i'm used to it.

a long summer, not too hot. i did nothing except work, and participate in my brother's wedding. in other words, no vacation, no road trips, nothing. i camped out by myself for two nights at brasstown falls in south carolina, but that's all. not a lot of bright moments, like two summers ago when dean, dan and jenni were here. mostly this summer was drab routine, long hours of humdrum at work. thirteen, fourteen hour days. but there were a few good times, like laying around matt and valerie's new apartment, reading and doing not much else. for some reason that is a great memory, probably the best of the summer. their apartment is really nice, very pleasantly arranged, and matt has been very kind and happy since his wedding. That pervading atmosphere made the evenings i spent there memorable. very calming. The night david and juls came over for a couple hours is up there, too. it was bittersweet, knowing i was saying goodbye to a great friend and that i wouldn't see him anymore, except in passing perhaps, now and then. it's a sobering thought, saying goodbye to good friends, and its one that's i'm beginning to face more and more.

the night jenni and i, caela, muffy, nate, and some other of caela's friends drove to greenville to see "king lear" in the park downtown was a good time, too. as was the night last week that muff, caela, emily, jenni and i went again to see "as you like it". it was cancelled for rain (which never actually came) but we made it a good time anyway, running around downtown, getting into trouble. i like any time spent with caela and muff and their friends. nate, clay, jonathan. those are good kids; i hope one day my children are as good-natured and as genuine as those kids are.

i've been teaching sunday school at my church for the past few months, and that has been a good challenge, not too difficult, but very rewarding. it feels good to be more involved with my church, to feel useful, and a little vulnerable. doing special music with jenni was one of the best feelings. we're going to do it again in the near future. the new men's group has been also very good, if a little lagging.

the coming semester is pretty frightening, financially, academically. i've got to be organized, plan ahead, and not procrastinate. to keep up with bills, to be responsible with my homework and try and get my GPA up a point or two, and not to let down the band or jenni. it seems like an incredibly difficult task. but at the same time, its the end of an era in my life, which in practice has been a lot of failure, apathy and confusion, but which in spite of all that, is almost over, over forever. i want to really fight to win those battles of self-discipline, apathy, with which i've struggled for the past four years.

going to drive down and see jenni tonight, for her birthday which was two days ago. she's 22, and i'm still only 20 (for two more months). i got her some good tea, and the new annie dillard novel. first edition, hardback. that shit's gonna be worth something one day. anyway. i'm going to take a book and hopefully spend some quiet peaceful time. there's not much to do down there. so we'll see.

its sunday afternoon at my parents house. i just slept for three hours, something I needed to do. i've been running more and more behind on sleep all week. ironic, since i recently resolved to started getting to bed early. usually i stay up till one or two, and wake up at seven thirty... not a good pattern. tonight we're going to practice, and after that maybe i'll do some laundry, maybe get mom to cut my hair, and try to get to bed at a reasonable time.

i did sunday school at church again this morning. i enjoy doing it but now that i'm beginning to settle into a routine certain challenges have come to the fore. there's an older missionary, mr wetzel, who along with pastor monty tends to try and teach the class for me. i prepare my notes and never get through them. they always either jump ahead and say things i had planned on saying, or move us entirely off topic. being so much younger and not wanting to interrupt or act disrespectfully its very hard to handle these situations. it's hard to deal with disagreements, or what's worse, more subtle differences of emphasis between me and pastor monty. Besides which i'm often awkward in my presentation and can't find words. worst of all, though, i feel like there's so much depth i'm not even touching. i spend a lot of time awkwardly stabbing around on the surface level. but it's all the kind of thing which i suppose i'll be facing, for better or for worse, for the rest of my life. it is one of the most worthwhile things i've ever done.

thinking a lot this week about being a hard worker. the work you do is an extension of you; it represents you. it's so easy to be dragged down by those around you, and to set patterns which are difficult to break. it seems like one of the best ideals to work toward, to be known as a hard worker. i'm afraid i've failed in this over the past years and the results are evident in every area of my life; i know how to work hard - my father is an extremely hard worker and required it of us growing up - but when everyone around you is slacking off it is hard to stand out. it's like that in just about every area of life though. there's no need to be all counter-culture and rebellious. just live consciensously and according to principle and you will stand out probably more than you want to. it's a strangely ironic phenomenon that it is a part of our culture to be "counter-culture", to be rebellious and dissatisfied with the status quo. but to a large degree the people who try, through their attitude, dress, etc., to go against the flow are really only declaiming their own insecurity, their cry to be accepted in the herd. which is not to say that they don't have some legitimate criticisms about modern culture. it's just a terribly obvious inconsistency which pretty much blows their credibility. i was in the mall last night with luke and michelle; the mall is one of the saddest places you can ever go. it's a microcosm of everything i hate most about american culture. Gross materialism, arrogance, greed, shallowness, superficiality. it feeds on people's pride and insecurity. those people have no idea about what it means to live (or, to struggle to live) a life of principle. i wondered what wendell berry would say about it all. the truth is that to really stand out, to live this life of principle, is to make yourself vulnerable, weak and a target for persecution. this realization would scare nearly all of those people away.

enough of that. i'm off to band practice with the lads. lots going on lately in contrail. is it all worthwhile? that's the question; i'm not sure...

reading:
alexander solzhenitsyn "the cancer ward"
alexander solzhenitsyn "the gualg archipelago" (pt. IV, "the soul and barbed wire")
t.s. eliot "the four quartets"

listening:
performance today on npr
braves baseball on the radio

watching:
nothing, except when my friends do and i can't escape

slept through my first class this morning and felt like the lazy, undisciplined person that i am. it's a good class and i respect the professor a great deal. just not thinking.

the night before last after i had dropped jenni off at her house i drove to a park where mom used to bring us when we were little. it was after eleven and very cold but i walked around for a while and tried to think clearly. i feel like i've made good choices lately and have put myself in a good place. but i also know that with every good choice comes another, tougher one and i think that this kind of broadening or escalating describes my experience over the past few months. there is a tendency to try to rush things, to look for God's hand at work where perhaps it isn't, and it takes a constant, conscious effort to instead wait patiently on His best will, knowing always that our slow, painful participation in that will is our salvation.

Advent, 11/17/06
A train, seen but not heard, on whose tracks, further down
We had walked an hour before
In the fading light and deepening chill
Colored over with grey of brown wooded climbing paths
And yellow of lights so far below
We could see the whole town like Christmas in the valley
(And now I felt Christmas in my arms, through the thin jacket)

A Christmas night, thirty-eight nights early,
You wrapped your small right hand around my side
And I felt a pause, wrapped shiveringly,
High in the aching cold above the domed glow of our town
Held by the steadiness of your purity
Afterward we walked down, down
Returning to the transient world we'd left
To my car in the folded hill by the track.

A cold coming, and a bright star to guide
(At times I've lost it, but it sailed again in the clear)
By its white light may I find true the place
In the company of angels, or the lowing of the kine
For I've a gift to bring
Harmed and hurt by my own clumsy hands
(Wrapped in my own tired arms)

when i woke up this morning i thought i had overslept and i was upset at myself, but as it turned out my alarm clock was about fifteen minutes fast and i hadn't slept in at all. made it to school on time and ate breakfast with david. we talked about our papers, and so on, and i realized what i've come to realize more and more this semester, that david is one of the truest friends i have. he is such a constant example of humility, honestly, and character. we came to the library and i finished up my outline and had half of it typed up by ten. chapel, lunch, and then i came back here and finished up just before 1:30. in class, collier called david and i both out (me in particular) for how weak our syntactical analyses had been. he was disappointed and while he was very gracious and kind in the way he went about it, i felt it pretty deeply. it was one of those rare moments when we are able, through our circumstances, to see ourselves clearly. my academic laziness and the apathy with which i've struggled over the past years was suddenly lit up in stark relief against the expectations of someone who has proven by a lifetime of study the value of hard work and discipline. the irony was i got an 87 on my syntactical paper; how is still a mystery. i knew i hadn't been very thorough and that i'd done a lot of guessing. the only real consequence, directly, is that getting where i should be in my study of greek will involve a lot of hard work in review of my grammar, relearning paradigms, vocabulary, etc. not that that is a light task, but i guess what i mean is that this one short coming is indicative of where i find myself is so many ways, and it being brought to my attention in this way has been just one more reminder of a pattern which i'm becoming more and more determined to break. sat outside immediately after that rather painful class session on the steps of the media center, looking out over earl field, surprised at how lovely the day had become. it was cool, a little bit breezy, lots of green leaves blowing in sunshine. i work tonight, and of course there is endless reading to be done.

and so life it goes...it goes...on

e.e. cummings:

i thank you God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky: and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings;and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any -- lifted from the no
of all nothing -- human merely being
doubt unimaginable you?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

"Simplicity means that you have brought things to a kind of unity in yourself; you have made certain connections. That is, you have to make a just response to the real complexity of life in this world. People have tried to simplify themselves by severing the connections. That doesn't work. Severing connections makes complication. These bogus attempts at simplification ignore or despise the real complexity of the world. And ignoring complexity makes complication--in other words, a mess."

:Wendell Berry

update.

running with:
matt, chris, luke, michelle, valerie, scott, jenni

listening to:
sunny day real estate "diary"
pink floyd "the dark side of the moon"
pink floyd "meddle"
mogwai "mr. beast"
belle and sebastian "tigermilk"
saxon shore "four months of darkness" (on vinyl, yesss)

watching:
paradise now
love, ludlow

playing:
rock and roll, at least part of the time

taking:
collier: theology of the kingdom
juncker: romans and galatians
williams: topics of early english literature
thomas: topics of american literature
collier: greek V (exegesis)
claytor: communicating the bible

thinking:
that i feel a change like i haven't had in years, if ever; a deepening and broadening
about what i've accomplished in the first twenty years of my life = not very much

trying:
to see the transcendence in the mundane, to find christ in the everyday struggle against indifference

Summer is here, hot and unhurried. There's nothing much to tell. Long days at work make the weeks slip past with little distinction. Matt and Valerie have left for Romania, and the rest of the family leaves Friday for two and a half weeks leaving just me and Maggie to fend for ourselves. I guess I look forward to school starting in a month and a half, but I've found there's really little difference between one schedule and another; even now, when there's no one here at all and each day exactly mirrors the last. It's the same choices, the same struggles, the same pervading mundanity. Life isn't glitz and glamour; even our brief moments of real experience leave us unsatisfied. There is no real transcendence in this life; only tantalizing glimpses of what awaits us. To live one's life well in the light of those glimpses, that is faith.

Reading:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: The gulag archipelago
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A world split apart

Listening:
Radiohead: The Bends
Mogwai: Mr. Beast
Nick Drake: Pink Moon

once again, another semester draws to a close, another summer looms long, hot and dead ahead. two more days of classes, some exams. no real stress this time, as i had turned in all my major projects by last week. just a quiet snuffing out of the candle. even in the shift from semester to summer, nothing changes. just more (if a little different) chances for me to prove myself, or to fail. i'm neither ready nor not ready for the change. just completely indifferent. i will miss people, but i won't miss classes. i won't enjoy being all by myself all summer long, but i will enjoy getting to choose my own reading.

who knows? this might be the last summer i spend in toccoa. i've spent enough in the past to know just what to expect. i've complained so much about the lack of variation in my life but i've begin to realize just lately how short i have to go before all of that begins to change drastically.

watching:
goodbye lenin
the edukators

listening:
low: trust
death cab for cutie: we have the facts and we've voting yes
yo la tengo: prisoners of LOVE

Things get so convoluted after a while. My life is a daily exercise in the hope that things aren't really as complicated as they appear to be. People make wrong sound so right. You'd think that after three years of college I'd finally begin to have a voice, to be able to adequately express and maintain what I believe. You'd think that, wouldn't you?

This weather this afternoon is beautiful, a little bit overcast but with the feel of spring, budding trees and warm breeze. I'm glad that by this time tomorrow I can put my books away, for a week anway. Things get convoluted and confusing, friends have trials and say hurtful things, everything gets monotonous and takes on a tedious sameness. But I had a good conversation with Luke just now, outside in the warm spotty sunshine, and I thought, who am I to complain?

No one reads this anymore; I took the link down (why was it ever up?), so this is just for myself.

Went to Greenville this morning for my student ministry. There were some good moments, but mostly I felt self-conscious and out of place. I talked with Matt H. for a while and was surprised to find that he's on much the same page as I am in a lot of areas. We talked about God's call and how the church has misconstrued that, also about seminaries (he, like me, always dreamed of going to Trinity but has now finds himself all but decided on going to SBTS). I thought about how likely it is I’ll find myself five years or so from now is an entirely different place than I’d ever envisioned. It’s a sobering thought. Matt is a person I kind of pigeon-holed at first. We’re from very different backgrounds and have varied interests but its encouraging to find we've come to a number of the same conclusions. It’s disturbing to think that the main difference between him and myself is his impressive work ethic. Man am I ever not there.

It’s dinnertime. I think I’ll go into town and find something. There weather isn’t getting any less beautiful as I sit inside. Afterward I’ll come back here and do some concentrated work.

This is the first evening I've been in the library this semester. I certainly don't want to be here now, but Matt is working on his enthnography project and so I'm stuck here for the evening. I wanted to do homework in Chris' room but I don't have the right books. Don't worry, it won't become a habit.

So we're playing Tuesday night at a club in Atlanta. I think we've put together the best set we've ever had. Hopefully it won't end up sucking. Like Matt Doty said, it's a jackpot of nothing. Sometimes it's terrific, and sometimes (more often in our case) it's not. But you keep trying. The trouble is that the music industry is such a heartlessly unfair business. It take a lot of commitment and then after that a lot of dumb luck. We don't have a whole lot of commitment, so I guess we don't even have the right to expect any luck. We're just so busy with other ambitions. If only music were all we knew.

Seriously, I feel like that. "Jack of all trades, master of none." A big part of me just wants to sell out on one thing and screw all the rest. To do one thing and do it well. It's like Stuart Murdoch (my main man) said one time:

Playing the piano well
Is like the ash outside my window
Is like the gorge of green which makes this view everlasting
Is something that I would like to do
In another life
At another time

Playing the piano well
I mean, really well
Is like a job making coffee
Is like a lifetime listening
Is like the vocation of a councillor
Dedicated, with a couch in a room
It’s like… pick one thing
Stick at it, be good at it
Know it is your life’s work
Celebrate the keys
Praise the blessed shape of a harp laid on its side

Oh, Stuart. He gets it. I wish he were a girl so I could marry him.

I’m tired and spread too thin. I got back from Florida last night only to find I have four (count ‘em, four) tests this week, two of which are tomorrow. It’s like finals week, without the comfort of knowing I’m almost through. Thankfully Collier gave me an extension on my Greek exam, so I don’t have to worry about that until. . .tomorrow night. The good news is, if I can survive this week, I’m in pretty good shape for a while.

I don’t know if the previous post came off as pretentious or what. I didn’t mean for it to be. I just wanted to write what I had been thinking as clearly as I could, but apparently I was still too confused cause that’s definitely how it reads. It’s just that I haven’t written anything worthwhile in so long. Not just here; anything, anywhere.

“When morning breaks I look to You, O God,
To be my strength this day.”
:John Michael Talbot

Listening to:
Iron and Wine “Our endless numbered days”

At communion this morning in chapel I thought about the reality of what I was doing: that the events of Christ’s death and resurrection are not just ideas or representative myths, but actual events in space and time; that in my body right now are the elements which in a very real sense symbolize the actual body and blood of Christ, and as such have the power to enable me to live the Life he brought. I realized (not for the first time) how much I’ve made the truths about Christ into an ideology which I use to give my life significance, without letting them filter down onto the plane where I actually live. Christ would be useless if he didn’t affect my daily life. It’s not an emotional thing; it’s a hard truth which I’m called to obey.

I don’t think it’s an accident that we actually ingest Christ’s body and drink his blood. This food enables us to live that Life which he brings, in an actual and physical sense. Alexander Schmemann: “Whether we ‘spiritualize’ our life or ‘secularize’ our religion, whether we invite men to a spiritual banquet or simply join them at the secular one, the real life of the world, for which we are told God gave his only-begotten Son, remain hopelessly beyond our religious grasp.” He’s talking about the dichotomy between the “spiritual,” or ideal, and the “secular,” or material; and he’s saying that Biblically there is no such thing: it’s all the same “life.” He draws them together this way: “When we see the world as an end in itself, everything becomes itself a value and consequently loses all value, because only in God is found the meaning (value) of everything, and the world is meaningful only when it is the ‘sacrament’ of God’s presence.”

I had a good nap behind the stacks in the library thinking about this right after chapel. I haven’t felt as rested in a long time as I did walking to lunch afterward. I have class now.

Reading:
Alexander Schmemann: For the life of the world
Isaac Bashevis Singer: Shosha

i have two tests this week soccer is not worth it so i skipped practice chris is just about my favorite person ever the band is playing again starting tomorrow night christ remains my only coherency i dreamed i lived in quebec city and it was wintertime it got dark at four and was bitterly cold i finally bought “the rising tide” last weekend and its splendid viva le bonhoeffer, viva le collier i went to florida last weekend and watched six terrible movies and cuddled with jamie h. and did no homework not much else to write at this juncture in three hours i’ll be nineteen happy happy birthday to me

I thought this was encouraging, and since I haven’t posted anything in forty-two years I thought, what the hey, I might as well put it up.

"The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins with the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death -- we give over our lives to death. Since this happens at the beginning of the Christian life, the cross can never be merely a tragic ending to an otherwise happy religious life. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther's, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time -- death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at His call. That is why the rich young man was so loath to follow Jesus, for the cost of his following was the death of his will. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and His call are necessarily our death and our life."

:Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "The Cost Of Discipleship"

This has been a draining week. There’s also an underlying expectancy and a kind of apprehension because I’ve got some hard classes starting next week and a busy schedule. Having gotten out and seen a little of the wide wide world this summer I think that even though Toccoa Falls isn’t the only life I could be living right now, it isn’t a bad one.

Soundtrack:
Sunny Day Real Estate “Diary”
Fugazi “13 Songs”
Yo La Tengo “Prisoners of Love”

Ethan's theme album summer '05:
Belle and Sebastian/The Boy With The Arab Strap

I also subsist on Iron and Wine and Simon and Garfunkel. It is good musics to give listens dood.

Summer 2005:
Williams: Apologetics
Evearitt: Church History (directed study)

Fall 2005:
Collier: Intermediate Greek I
Collier: Leviticus/Hebrews
Penland: Cultural Anthropology
Wetmore: God and Redemption
Wetmore: Theology of Worship and Prayer

Sitting in the library just before my 10:20 class. I just dozed off for a little bit. Staying awake for the next two hours is going to be a real push. It's summer session. You've got to step everything up a notch. It isn't that the class isn't interesting; just long. My summertime mind generally refuses to concentrate on anything for longer than a few minutes. Thinking about "issues" doesn't typically go over well either. I'd rather just drift.

In other news I'll be loading dishes for 900+ youth group kids all week out at GBA. It's exhausting, but there's something fulfilling about slogging around in the dishroom for eight hours at a time pushing yourself to keep from falling behind. For the record though, I hate youth group kids. I've been trying to get away from being so stereotypical and judgmental in general but I'm convinced they're among the most obnoxious breeds of people there are. They need to get out and see a bit of the complexity and beauty of the real world. They just don't get it. I'm speaking in broad generalizations of course; but speaking at large. There are some cuties there. Erin C. had something of the youth group about her; a naivete, just enough to be endearing. So you know, I make concessions where I need to.

I've got to get to class. Peace outs.

I haven't written in a while. My sleep schedule is all shot to pieces, I'm in the middle of about six books, I've been at Dan's house about as much as here. My mind is a blank. By way of explanation I guess. I've got to put this summer together and somehow make sense of it.

Well I’ve been knocking around on various online blogs for quite a while and I think it’s about time I sat down and tapped out something of my own.

Today it’s been one thing and another. Taking care of business, running errands, saying goodbyes I’d rather not say. Summer will be a quiet, good time. It will be hot, too long and at times unbearably slow.

So much changes. I can’t handle all this change. Things have been pelting forward at a breakneck pace for so long, and I’m just so glad things are finally slowing down. I need things to settle down so I can think. The trouble is we don’t have the time to think properly. We need to take more walks, go for more drives, listen to more classical music.

I’m admittedly tired of summers in this town, but you’ve got to admit it’s very peaceful. I mean you’ve got to give it that much. I’m in the school library right now and I’m one of the only people on the entire floor. It’s a good aesthetic. Also, the internet connection is faster.

:: Sunday, April 10 ::

3:14am
Tonight I saw Saxon Shore. I could try to write everything I felt and thought, but it would only come up short. I’ll never forget tonight. Saxon Shore is my favorite band.

We only just got in. I’ve got to try and stay awake all night, since I go in to work at 6, only three hours from now. To sleep for just two and a half hours would be the death of me. Right now I’m going on three cups of coffee and a great deal of pure aesthetic momentum. To be honest I don’t feel all that bad.


:: Monday, March 27 ::

12:51am.
We had beef teriyaki at Billy’s apartment tonight. It was spicy and very good. I love my friends.

I’m at home; Matt fixed the room up nice again and we cleaned up. We put artwork back, cleared off the couch, straightened stacks and put everything in its right place. I like being here when it's this neat. I think we've done a good job with it overall, considering the red trim which you can't do anything about. It’s easy to take it for granted and let the mess get to you, but when its neat you really get an impression of what the room must look like to people who might see it for the first time. Very simple and livable, but with an underlying aesthetic clarity. I like my books the most. I have such great books. If Dan and I do get an apartment in the fall we're going to have a fine time decorating it. We’ve got good sensibilities and Dan has a lot of furniture at his parents' house. We would make a good team.

It’s been a strange weekend. There were some memorable moments but a pervading apathy has bothered me to no end. I can't seem to get into any kind of a routine this semester. Every day seems strange, like every situation is new and I’m having trouble adjusting to all the change. I wrote a while ago that I am just waiting for that sense of peace and constancy. Not boring: just peaceful, with learning and change taking place against a strong settled background upon which I can rest. And that background is Christ. It’s as though I can feel myself on the brink of a breakthrough, as though everything in my life has been leading up to this point and I’m finally ready to begin to put things together, and to begin to settle down into a smooth simple routine. I want, more than anything else, to settle down. Everything is in its right place and ready to go, but practically it isn't so simple.

I say this often, but I want this week to be that breakthrough. I want to go about my routine with a new sense of purpose and meaning, pressing on with determination toward the goal. I have some classes, some reading to catch up in and a couple of projects.

I’d like to spend some time at home this week. Maybe I can keep this room clean.

Listening:
Yo La Tengo: And then nothing turned itself inside-out



:: Saturday, March 12 ::

8:52pm.
Buechner:
"What’s prayer? It’s shooting shafts into the dark. What mark they strike, if any, who's to say? It’s reaching for a hand you cannot touch. The silence is so fathomless that prayers like plummets vanish in the sea. You beg. You whimper. You load God down with empty praise. You tell him sins that he already knows full well. You seek to change his changeless will. Yet Godric prays the way he breathes, for else his heart would wither in his breast. Prayer is the wind that fills his sail. Else waves would dash him on the rocks, or he would drift with witless tides. And sometimes, by God's grace, a prayer is heard.

"Dear lord, strew herbs upon my hermit's dreams to make them sweet. Have daylight mercy on my midnight soul."

I’ve been reading Saxby’s blog again, and reading Buechner. I’m an idiot.

Ethan’s favorite record ever:
Saxon Shore/Four months of darkness


:: Friday, March 11 ::

To read:
Rachel Carson: The edge of the sea
Frederick Buechner: The final beast
André Gide: Journals



:: Saturday, March 5 ::

1:10am.
With Chris. Saw two bands at the 40 watt in Athens last night and knocked around downtown and the university for a long time beforehand. We were in a diner and afterwards the venue and I thought about how ridiculous the indie rock scene is. Ive digressed. I am antifashion.

For spring break Matt, Val, Jenni and I are going to a state park on the beach in South Carolina to just lay out for a few days. I’m taking a few books, and a lot of music. If it comes off the way we've planned, it should be pleasant. Hopefully it will turn out like "Greenpeace."

I’m getting back in the way of these journal-esque entries. This is a journal after all.

Soundtrack:
Red house painters: Ocean beach

:: Tuesday, March 1 ::
4:37pm.
update:

reading:
frederich buechner/godric
f. f. bruce/the gospel of john
robert frost/collected poems

listening:
red house painters/songs for a blue guitar
sunny day real estate/lp2
sunny day real estate/the rising tide
low/trust

watching:
21 grams
the truman show

looking:
my smudged notes in bright sunlight as snow flakes came down outside the window in my eleven o'clock
the tape of last week's show, and how nervous and up-tight i looked
the study carrell in the library where ive spent so many hours lately, and out the same window at the same buildings and the same christmas lights in the window across the street

thinking:
about my faltering faith in christ, for my future
about how i'm determined to break this funk im in

All right.

I haven't done this in what, a week now? Not much changes. Time just cycles by.

We've only got three more weeks. It's kind of hard to believe. I haven't really got that much work, only some reading, a paper, and then that last rush for exams. And then you're through. I think I've put up all A's this term; I might have slipped to an A- in Greek. I just have to concentrate for three more weeks.

Lots of short choppy sentences in this. I'm just that tired.

All right. Last Saturday some of us went down to see Saxon Shore at the Caledonia in Athens. They were superb, absolutely superb, but there's just not time here. It was me, Chris and Dan who went. Anyway what with getting turned around in Athens and stopping for coffee, we didn't get in until something like three. And I had to work at six. I knew if I crashed out for only two plus hours I would feel terrible when I woke up, not to mention the chances of me getting up at all were pretty slim. So I said, hey, I'm in college, I've done this before, I'll just stay up. I didn't feel all that tired to tell the truth, and I had new Saxon Shore and three cups of coffee to fuel me. I did a morning shift, with Sean and Jackie. Sunday morning shifts are boss. There were only fifty people for lunch and Mike is never around on Sundays. You finish up breakfast around nine and then you just sit on your duff until twelve or pretty near it. By the time I left, around two, I was ready to sleep for sure. But while I was getting ready to shower, Shintaro called. They were playing soccer at three. Well I couldn't really say no honestly. We played until six-thirty, and it was something like eighty out. I played well; I had a good time. One thing led to another: I had to attend a school play, people wanted to do stuff. I didn't get to bed until one if I remember.

All that to say: it's Tuesday night and I still haven't recuperated. Dan told me Monday he read somewhere that it takes a week to get to feeling completely normal after an all-nighter. I told him I thought it was total bull-puckey. I've done it plenty of times, and I always bounce back after like one good night. Maybe it's all the power of suggestion.

Whatever the cause, this week has been pretty much a complete wash thus far. I just sat down to read Old Testament criticism after dinner. I sat there like an hour and got three pages in. So I came over and just typed this. I'll get back to normal, eventually. Only five more days. Dan you jinx.

The last day of autumn.

The path broke into a clearing, and I stood still for a moment. There were a lot of fallen trees in the center, and on the far side I could see the footpath leading away to the left, away from campus and everything that was familiar to me. For here on it was all new; I didn't know where the path led.

There was a tent pitched to my left on the far side of the clearing, on the other side of the fallen logs. It was camoflage and I hadn't seen it at first. I called out but no one answered; someone must have left it there. I was suddenly disappointed to find that I wasn't really alone. Someone had come here ahead of me, and would return sometime after I had gone. It didn't make any sense, but I realized that part of my joy at finding this trail was that I had been alone, and that the trail was in some sense mine. Now I saw that I had been wrong.

I turned and went on. The path began to climb, gently at first and then more steeply, leading always to the left. The late afternoon sun was in my eyes as I climbed, blinding me one moment and then disappearing behind the horizon the next. Every so often it would light up the woods with a blaze of golden light. Once I could even see the rays, split apart by the trees above, shooting down through the clear cold air to land on the fallen leaves below. I passed a deer stand to my right, a light iron ladder and a platform high up in a tree, so quiet and unobstructive I could easily have walked past without noticing.

Here in the woods the wind was still and the only sound was my feet on the leaves. The sky was clear and bright blue above. It kept surprising me, walking below. I would be walking along and suddenly through a space in the trees above the sky would dazzle me with its blueness. I thought it contrasted well with the drab autumn brown of the woods.

Up and up the path led. It was very steep now, and I kept slipping on the leaves as I climbed. For perhaps fifteen minutes it went up, and I struggled along, slipping and clutching at small trees to keep myself from falling. Sometimes I would run for short bursts, and then tire and stop for a moment to catch my breath.

Finally I reached the top, and the path dead ended into another, perpendicular one. I had a little time before dark, but not too much, so I chose the righthand side which led back in the direction of the school. I wondered how far it would be, or if the path would even lead me back to school. I set out again, walking briskly now that the ground was level and relatively even. The hill fell away steeply to my right, back the way I had come.

Suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, I rounded a curve and found the entire school laid out like a toy village beneath me through the winter trees. It seemed very small and a long ways off. The hills wrapped all the way around it, and I stood, opposites the school's entrance, high on a ridge looking down. I could see the buildings where I had my classes, where I and my friends studied and ate and played. I could see the dining hall, and a few tiny people like insects going in and out. I went further down the path and up a small rise to try and see better, but the trees got in the way and I came back. I began to put together my perspective, trying to place each familiar building and field. I could see the sidewalks I walked along every day, and I could make out odd objects, like the awning of a particular dormitory or the steps out in front of the library. The buildings were all the same drab red brick color, blending nicely with the brown hills. It seemed as though they were meant to be there, as though the college had come about quite naturally, without disturbing the serene woods.

I had grown tired of the school. It was small and Christian and far away from any city. I often felt trapped, as though I were missing out on something greater, a fullness of experience somewhere else. Every day I saw the same things: the same buildings, the same people, the same trees and cars. Nothing was new. The feeling had gotten worse as the last semester had worn on, so that by the end I could hardly stand the boredom and sameness that my life had taken on. Now it was break, and all my friends had gone home for Christmas. My family lived in town, only a few minutes away. I had come to walk in the woods, to be alone and think. It was the last day of autumn.

It all seemed so small. I could cover the entire school with my two hands stretched out at arm's length from my body. It was something of a shock, to see my entire life shrunken down to a view from the surrounding hills. But it was a welcome change. It was so easy to get caught up in the moment, in the details of one project or another. From here, all those details disappeared. What you had was buildings, neatly arranged in a valley, a color contrast, an aesthetic, and that was all.

Something about seeing the entire school so small and comprehensive below me made me think about the history of the school. It had begun a hundred years ago, with a couple of buildings, and slowly added on as the school picked up steam. It was still very quiet, unassuming bible college in the hills of northeast Georgia. There had come several adversities of which our professors often reminded us, a couple of fires, and a dam break and flood which had killed about fifty people. There was a small book, a history of the school written by a white-haired gentlemanly man who had been with the school in the beginning. It was called "A Tree God Planted." I thought about this now, looking down at the little school in the hills, with its houses and buildings I knew; all right there in front of me. A tree God planted.

I realized abruptly that it was going to be dark soon. There wasn't enough time to go back the way I had come. The sun had slipped over the hills behind me, and it was already getting colder. I looked at the tiny campus a moment longer. Then I set out down the ridge toward the school.

Class Schedule Spring 2005.

Collier: Elementary Greek II
Elkins: Ancient & Medieval Philosophy
Collier: Gospel of John
Williams: English Literature II
Hildenbrand: Poetry & Prophecy

I once wanted to make a film about our school. I kept a notebook for a while where I put ideas for scenes, camera angles, places and people I’d want to include in the movie. For a soundtrack I decided on Saxon Shore, along with some of our earlier more obtuse pieces. I wanted to show that in spite of how bored I get with this campus and how mundane and ordinary it seems, there is a certain beauty in it which I would want to demonstrate as objectively as possible. It would have been something of an exercise in finding the beauty in everything: the right perspective, the perfect angle.

There are lots of open spaces at our school. None of this close oppressive atmosphere you find other places. Did you ever stop to think about how many open fields there are around the college grounds? Outside Earl Hall, the intramural field, outside the student center, the flood plains. The randomest of places! I think this would factor pretty heavily into the film. So would the library. Upstairs, looking out from our little study corner in the back. It was there that I first had this idea. I was reading an article in the New York Times magazine about Chinese filmmaker Wong Kar-wai. Things just kind of went along from there. There was a lot more. But I lost the notebook, and anyway, my particular ideas aren’t the point.

The point is: it’s difficult to communicate an aesthetic. The point of the entire project would have been a feeling, an idea, and I have a hunch that this would be completely lost on half the people who saw it. It has less to do with what I know about Toccoa Falls College then the campus itself, and that would be the hardest part. But I think I’ve got it and it would be both interesting and challenging to try and communicate this through a film.

I thought about calling Billy up and having a go at it. But these things never really get off the ground. They never even make it on the runway. I guess you could say they explode in the hangar.

I’m taking up piano again starting in a couple of weeks. So here’s a piece from Stuart Murdoch which I found relevant. Stuart Murdoch is a remarkable rock star. One of the greats. Read his cryptic but revealing thoughts by clicking here.

Playing the piano well
Is like the ash outside my window
Is like the gorge of green which makes this view everlasting
Is something that I would like to do
In another life
At another time
Purer I would try to be
Stand up to the notes without flinching!
Sit down at the stool with conscience clean
Ready for a days work at rattling and tormenting strings
Coaxing, plucking, making up things

Playing the piano well
I mean, really well
Is like a job making coffee
Is like a lifetime listening
Is like the vocation of a councillor
Dedicated, with a couch in a room
It’s like… pick one thing
Stick at it, be good at it
Know it is your life’s work
Celebrate the keys
Praise the blessed shape of a harp laid on its side
Cased in maple
Romance the pedals
Exercise your fingers
Run the relay of your life
A paperchase for joint and arm and wrist

If you play the piano well
You need never go out again
You need never eat another meal
Your job becomes a meditation
(And that gets you off a lot a things!)
Women come to bathe you
Men to upbraid you
Contracts are thrown at you
By idealistic radio programmers
By dreamers with graveyard shows
By ether painters, with swallows for pets

Contracts lie caked in dusk though
As you play on, threatened with arthritis
Dogged by tinnitus
Left by sexual partner
Abandoned by squash doublers
Dismissed by mail box troublers
You play on
Till enlightenment
(In the form of a Chopin Nocturne)
Comes down and lets you sleep
Sleep, baby, sleep

Class, work, study, sleep.
Do it again.

This was an experiment. It's not necessarily something I'm proud of, but it is interesting and it was fun to do. I realize it makes me look like a blowhard.

Also, I have to give credit to James Joyce for getting me rolling.


II.
Riverrun, past Adam’s Eve, in the corner a sad Molly sits twisting her hairsad waiting to homego and take me with you Molly take me with you Molly-olly. Take me past the river, up the hillstown see the streets streets streets to your townhouse waiting patiently. Flowersit vases quietly tying together soupcans and tablecloths checker-red, waiting for Molly and me. Photos in the kitchen stare out at kitchenspace and burners and panspots and checker-red tablecloths and wait wait for the archetypes to appear. Records sitting in boxes resting on walls restingresting. Backgarden waiting in catnip and cyclamens, small roundbench waiting for Molly and for me. Toiletseats upright doilies by the bathroom faucets. Neatly arranged. Sit sit is it sitsit? Catssit, beside Bedsit, bedlay bedroom quietly candlesit, candlestand on dressers waiting for my Molly and for

me. Afghansitting silently together. Recordplayer entertain us with songs we'd forgotten.

Afghansitting minutes later. I remember when times things were closer, when times songs we remember now were first remembered. Past riverrun I was Eve's Adam waiting for Godknewwhat. Your hair softcheek, your body softwarm. I am thinking (if at all) of how I could be the savior of one who sits beside me. But you'll be the one that saves me. Saveme saveme please Eve, saveme from the monsters I see everywhere, behind bookshelves bulletinboards under tables chairs checker-red tablecloths waiting for my Molly and for me. If time is the diamond time is sparklinggolden don't let it drip away from me don't let it run down past lanes lorries. Finally a respite. Finally a respite. In stillness I am thinking

my Molly is for me.

St. Francis of Assisi, Peace Prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow Your love
Where there is injury, pardon
And where there is doubt, let me bring Your faith

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace
Where there is despairing, let me bring Your hope
Where there is darkness, Your light
Where there is sadness, let me bring Your joy

Oh divine Master, grant that I might see
Not so much to be consoled, as to console
To be understood, as to understand
Not so much to be loved, as to love another

For it is in giving that we now recieve
It is in pardoning that we are now pardoned
And it is in dying that we are now born again

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow Your love

The first day of summer.

The path twisted on up ahead, bending in the undergrowth, out of sight. The young ashes and oaks stood peacefully on either side, their green leaves slowly turning a darker shade in the evening light. In places the wood was almost dark, here in the shadow of two larger oaks growing together somewhere far up, and again as the path dipped into a copse of hazel and rhododendron. But overhead the evening sky was still light and clear, blue fading to white in the evening.

Two figures followed the path, walking slowly through the dimming light. It was not for fear of losing the path that they took their time. They were in no hurry, and they knew the wood well. Off to their left a small stream of water flowed gently past, sometimes too far to hear, and other times twisting close alongside the small track. It made hardly any noise, but seemed to guide them along nonetheless.

It was a young boy, following close behind his older brother. They came from the town not far away and walked in a comfortable silence. Both were lost in thoughts of their own, and yet each in his way was very aware of his companion. They had come to walk in the quiet woods and to sit by the waterfall to which the path eventually led. There was a comfort in their being together, but the comfort was a new one. Wherever their thoughts led them, to the woods, to the events of the past weeks, they each led them back to thoughts of one another. The younger one pleasant thoughts at his brothers unexpected kindness in bringing him here, and the older brother somewhat guilty thoughts that he had not done it a long time ago.

The path led on without much change for perhaps a couple of miles. Then it unexpectedly veered off to the right, leading away from the stream of water, before just as unexpectedly striking it again. The two brothers heard the waterfall several minutes before they saw it, a small waterfall, perhaps only ten feet high, and they scrambled easily over the rocks that led around and above it. There they sat down amoung the cascades and pools which trickled down to the actual falls itself. It was almost the longest night of the year, the last day of spring, and the fireflies were out.

They sat in stillness for a long time, content in the comfortable familiarity in which silence is not awkward. And slowly the silence became rich and full as they both came to realize this. The light faded around them, slowly closing them in, and the sound of the falling water beside them grew louder in the dusk. The leaves on the trees about them faded from deep green to grey until the trees were no longer distinct but only vague shapes suggested by their rustlings in the breeze.

Two weeks ago, their father had been in an accident. A semi had run a stop light and smashed into the side of his swerving car. He had been air lifted to a hospital where he had made a surprisingly swift recovery from a severe concussion and a bruised brain. Now he sat at home, silent and confused, as his brain slowly regained the ground it had lost, reconnecting the synapses and impulses which made him who he was. For the time being his mind was like a child. He made daily progess, but it was slow progress and discouraging to see his discouragment. It was difficult to watch. His sons saw their father, a figure to respect and honor, someone to look toward for help and advice, so completely disabled so that he could not even put together a logical sentence, and it frightened them.

The younger son took it especially hard. He had been in the accident with his father and had seen the body twisted and bloody, rolled away on a stretcher and lifted the in the helicopter, out of reach. He himself had been unharmed except for a seatbelt burn on his left forearm, and he would look at that burn, healing quickly and easily, in the slow days of waiting and wondering that followed while his father lay in the hospital, helpless and hooked up to tubes. The older brother was more independent and could more adequately reason through what had happened to his father, and in that reason, in the simple and honest truth, he found comfort. For the younger brother, however, everything seemed more dim and less simple. It was confusing to see his father so incapacitated. The emotions cannot understand things as completely as the mind, and the younger brother needed something concrete, something solid to hold onto.

There was an old water pipe which began not far from the waterfall. The pipe ran above ground, supported from three to ten feet in the air by iron girders and was large enough to walk on. It led downhill, at first gradually and then quite steeply, about two miles through the woods toward an old abandoned pump station, and beyond it a gravel road which would lead them, eventually, back to their parked car. The pipe was rusted through in many places and some sections had fallen to the ground, but for the most part it was still intact.

As the night came on the two brothers still sat in silence, listening to the falling water and each content in the other's company. The darkness was complete now, and it was time to leave. The crickets were out, giving the night a sort or rich and dreamy texture, bringing with them all the memories of summers past. The fireflies blinked on and off in the trees. The two brothers stood up and stood still for a moment, as if decided what to do. Then the older brother thought of the pipe.

They found it after a short search, with the aid of a flashlight which they had brought along for the return journey in the dark. The pipe groaned as they hefted themselves up and got their balance. The older brothers took the lead with the light, the younger following just behind. With the flashlight on, the woods around them faded into deep blackness. The trees on either side of them all but disappeared, and the only visible things were their legs, the leaves on the ground beneath them shown up now and again by the light, and the pipe itself, leading downward into the gloom.

They walked carefully, watching their step, but steadily, making good progress, slanting always downward. The trees, dark silent shapes on either side, moved slowly past. At one place an entire section of the pipe had broken off and tetered like a seesaw on it iron girders, and they had to get down and walk around it. Several trees had fallen over the pipe in various places which had to be clambered over or ducked under. The stars and moon had disappeared somewhere behind the trees. The two boys kept them eyes downward anyway, watching the dim beam of light which showed them only the next few careful steps.

At last the pipe reached the steep incline and plunged down the hill at an alarming angle. The brothers were obliged to crawl down it on their backs, crab style. It fell steeply down for a long time, made longer by their slowed progress, and finally bent to the right toward the pump station. Just before reaching it, the pipe ran into some thick undergrowth, blackberry bushes and vines. They had to move around to the left, crunching on the leaves in the stillness. They skirted the pump station as best they could, but it seemed to take longer than it should have. The pump station was behind them, and they still hadn't broken out into the clear. For several confused and silent minutes they walked on, wondering where the road could have gone.

Suddenly, with no warning, they felt the crunch of gravel under their feet. The must have skirted the pump station too widely and had met the road further up than they had expected. In the woods they had forgotten how bright the night was and how light the stars. The moon lit up the road, which gleamed ghostly white. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the brightness. The older brother flicked off the light and they stood side by side squinting at the trees on the other side of the road. They still had perhaps two miles to walk along the brilliant strip of gravel. It was past midnight, the first day of summer.

Seby Jones Library, 12:49pm.
Wireless and Cause:

Yellow lights are floating down
You can barely see them now
They explain you on the bus queues
Advertising wireless and cause
Around every blind turning
There are turnings everywhere
Your mind is full of leaving
Right and it's reasons

Now i'm waiting in between
Men and girls called custom queens
They're explaining how to make it
With humility, compliance and
I'm so tired of leaving
Right and wrong's reasons
In bus queues waiting far behind
I've found something new:

Would you go back? Is being real worth it now?
Could you go back? Is knowing why worth it now?
Or would you lie? Would you lie? Will you go back?

Hi.

As much as i love my friends, sometimes I get tired of spending time in large groups. Rarely if ever are those times really meaningful. I often find myself wishing for a long walk with just one person. Meaningful conversations are what I live for.

I've gotten a little lazy and I'm having to play catch-up with Greek. So much homework and such precious little incentive. My classes are on the whole largely boring to me. It's just busy work. It's difficult to stay motivated, especially when you're so run-down and exhausted.

I need the discipline to just put my head down and get through these next thirteen weeks. But heck if I know where it's going to come from.

Listening:
Beck: Sea Change
Elliot Smith: Either/Or
Ryan Adams: Love is Hell
Map: Secrets by the Highway

Reading:
Nothing of interest.

I'm working on being a more credible websurfer. Instead of going through my usual paces, (bands i listen to, my friends' weblogs) I'm pushing myself, checking out liberal rag news pages, reading reviews of music ive never heard before, and even subscribing to a couple of choice ezines. Most significantly, I've begun actually reading the philosophical/theological pages which i had bookmarked to make myself feel credible, but rarely actually read. Specifically, I've found these pages to be worth checking out.

The Orthodox Church in America: http://www.oca.org/
Philosophy Pages: http://www.philosophypages.com/
John Michael Talbot: http://www.john-michael-talbot.org/Reflections/reflections.html

Also:
The Onion: http://www.theonion.com
The Drudge Report: http://www.drudgereport.com/
WUOG Athens: http://www.uga.edu/~wuog/
The Flagpole: http://www.flagpole.com/

Here's to the modern internet age. I won't be left behind.

Life is beautiful. I know I've said it before , and I know that for many people life is a gratuitous struggle, but speaking for myself, I am struck daily by the tremendous gift of life in Christ. It is only by God's mercy that every day I am surrounded by beauty, beauty in music and in art, beauty in people I meet and talk with, beauty in nature and most of all, beauty in Christ. The gifts of service and suffering only make life more full. I'm still only sampling the potential of life in Christ.

May I live worthy of the life he has called me to.

Soundtrack:
Ryan Adams: Love is hell
Wilco: A ghost is born
The smiths: The queen is dead

Reading:
Steven Landsburg: The armchair economist
Alexander Schmemann: For the life of the world

Watching:
Kill Bill vol. 1
Lost in Translation

Class Schedule Fall 2004.

Williams: Western Thought & Culture
Juncker: Hermeneutics
Wetmore: Principles of Evangelism
Evearitt: Church History
Collier: Elementary Greek I
Roedding: World Perspectives

my legs hurt the library is almost empty there is practice again at three and that's only three hours away i saw a funny movie last night with dave jamey and matt my feet hurt too i went to see my friend chris sunday night chris is a good kid im more physically exhausted than ive ever been before there are still four more days of camp left icy hot icy hot icy hot orientation sucks paul m. is a beast i'm not listening to any music or reading anything this week this week i'm just surviving three practices a day plus morning runs and sprints not much else to write at this juncture i'm going to lunch now tap tap tap is this thing on

4:47am.
i’m spending tonight reading and listening to interpol. i keep coming back to this album. the drums alone are worth it all. as cryptic and entirely random as the singer can be at times, he still makes countless poetic and piercing observations about his relationships and lovers. and the guitar sound paired with the vocals and the way the melodies are constructed is simply brilliant.

buy the record, buy the record, buy the record.

i'll be tracking drums sometime in the next few weeks for the songs we've managed to record. recording drums requires a lot of precision and patience, two things i've had difficulty mustering lately. with an effort and a good bit of luck i'll be able to pull it off and we'll have a nice recording. j. is playing bass with us now and we're all excited. she's filling us out in more ways than just the live sound. most significantly she simply fits so perfectly in the band. it was a timely and wonderful addition.

k. will be in town this weekend, ironically, for the interpol/mogwai/the cure show i was both too cheap and too lazy to buy tickets for. it would have been a push for a number of reasons and forty dollars is a lot of money to stand so far away from the stage that the players look like ants. either way it's too late now. it will be good to see k.

i apologize for the lack of any meaningful entries in the past weeks. i'm dry. this summer has been too dull and too much of a drudge to provide the springboard i need to communicate all the thoughts i've been driving myself mad with. nothing's very coherent. i lack the ablility to honestly render my thoughts just as the thoughts themselves are such a jumble i'm often unsure whether anyone could get them down at all. writing is hard work, and so often entirely unrewarding. i'd rather read someone who actually has something to say. i'd rather sleep, to be honest. i've hated this entire summer for a thousand reasons.

christ is my only coherency.

When morning breaks I look to You, O God,
To be my strength this day.

soundtrack:
john michael talbot: come to the quiet
all things bright and beautiful: love and affection

dear lyndsey:

the temporary consensus was by no means a final decision. it was a means to an end. after another talk with chris resulting in a overwhelming feeling of discouragment and powerlessness i went to work one night for a five hour shift in the snack shop. i was working by myself and there was hardly any business, so i had a lot of time to myself to sit on the freezer and think/write/listen to interpol. i realized i was decided on three things. first, in keeping with what ive been thinking of late re: seeking God's will, my decision isn't going to be based on something mystical or mysterious; a feeling or a "peace". instead, it's going to be based on scriptural principles, for example stewardship of what God has given me, both intellectually and financially. so you could say my decision will be made where these biblical principles, that is, what i know to be true, meet the circumstances in my life. second, i want to keep the decision as out in the open as possible, especially as regards my parents; but also i want to talk it through with others who may have differing opinions, such as chris, dr. elkins, &c. third, (and obviously) i decided that i want to be sure that whatever i end up doing is the right thing. that is, if im still at toccoa this time next year, i want to be so in the confidence that i am here by God's will. and vice versa.

i still obviously have quite a bit of time to work this through. there's no sudden rush. it could be that some unforeseen circumstances will make it clear what i should do, without the issue ever coming to a head. im content to rest for now, as always, in his sovereignty and grace.

as for what i want to do eventually, again it's much the same. im content to wait in confidence on his will. i want to study philosophy/theology. it's very vague. ideally id like to end up teaching at a university somewhere fifteen years down the road, after i finish my ph.d.. i'd like to write on the side as well, and not just philosophy. but we'll see what happens. so far all i really know is that i want to study for the next ten years. and im more than content with that. in fact im thrilled. i like everything about being a student. i like being able to play in my band on the side.

but what about you, lyndsey? you didn't say much about your own situation at all. exactly what effects did our conversation have on you? im naturally curious. i think i could guess, at least some of it, but id rather hear it from you.

ethan mccarthy

8:21pm:
i took doyle street home tonight, turning down all the cul-de-sacs and dead-end streets. it was like mitsimatu anno's americana. i saw a couple of men working on a car. a woman came around the corner of her house carrying potted flowers and wearing a bandana on her head. a little girl clapped for her dog as i rolled by at about fifteen miles an hour; i smiled and she smiled back at me. i hadn't been through that part of town in quite awhile. for a long time all ive seen of toccoa is what i pass by on my way to and from school. there were a lot of old houses, not run down, but old, with flowers in the yards and porch swings. there were lots of azaelea and rose bushes. i heard a lawn mower several houses away over yo la tengo on my stereo. a dog barked at me. i was reminded of all those towns we drove through last summer on our way across america, and for a moment i could almost imagine that it was some quiet, idyllic midwestern town.

but it was just toccoa.

5:43am:
it's nearing six and i've been up all night. i finished singer's "the penitent" and listened to quite a lot of saxon shore, both new and old. i found singer to be very observant and intelligent. he makes a lot of accurate observations, but in the end arrives at the wrong conclusions.

today i'm going to read a good bit more, maybe some singer if i can find something at the library, if not probably schmemman or calvino. i have band practice at kallan's in the afternoon. also matt and i need to go over our set a couple times to get ready for friday night. i'd like to write a bit as well.

a lovely day tomorrow.

listening:
saxon shore/be a bright blue
saxon shore/four months of darkness


2:08am:
school is out, and i'm glad. i took my last exams on tuesday. i'm ready for a quiet summer. i'll be working forty hours a week at gbcc, splitting time between the snack shop and the dishroom. also i'll be at art camp the last week of june. i'm pretty excited about that. jenni and jim will be staying in town to work over the summer, so i wont be completely alone. im going to read a lot, and get ready for soccer this fall, and play my drums.

i got a b- in public speaking, and an a- in both early church and comp II. it's upsetting because i know i could have done much better. i don't really mind for myself, but i'd have liked to keep my 4.0 through college. it would have looked good on my transcript when i go to apply at graduate programs. but now ive botched it, and in easy classes too. there's nothing to complain about. i got lazy this semester. it was foolish of me and now i'm regretting it.

tomorrow is never really a new day. that's just what they say.

listening:
british sea power/the decline of british sea power
yo la tengo/summer sun
fugazi/red medicine

reading:
the penitent/isaac bashevis singer
if on a winter's night a traveller/italo calvino
the power and the glory/graham greene

e.e. cummings:

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
--i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
--i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

philosophy is about asking the right questions. if you ask the right questions, the answers pretty much fall into place. screw answers.

thank god for summer. and thank god im staying home.

and now. good night.

1:58am:

an ideal.
to study philosophy/theology in college, to pursue this study right on into graduate school and probably into doctoral work: more specifically, to know WHAT i believe and to be able to communicate this; to have several very close friendships, centered around music but transcending music; to be a solid drummer along the lines of the drummers from saxon shore, death cab, and mogwai, and to be in a very good band along similar lines; most of all, to KNOW HIM, God, and as fearful as i am of this relationship, to continue to pursue it as He gives me grace to do so.

i want to be the quiet one, the one who has a lot to say but doesn't usually say it, the steady one who people know they can trust. i want to be the intellect, the thinker. i want to be the good drummer.

seby jones library
12:40pm:

relationships are scary.
the future is scary.
watching your ideals change is scary.
nothing's the way it is in books.

12:07am.

i had an discouraging talk with c. the other night re: tfc. he seems positive he wants to go elsewhere to finish up his degree in philosophy after next year. i, on the other hand, remain unsure as to the quality of the degree/timing, not to mention the cost. being a faculty-dependent, i get free tuition at toccoa falls. seeing as i am one of six children, my parents obviously can't afford not to take advantage of the cut. which scenario is less than ideal for me, as tfc at present only has one philosophy professor. c. has been talking to a friend of his from uga, who as a sophomore has taken eight philosophy classes already, including aesthetics and concentrations such as kant and heidegger. needless to say tfc doesn't offer any of these courses. its pretty discouraging frankly. i'm stuck at a school which cant give me the education i want.

obviously i need to look into all of this some more. im sure my dad will have something to add. i need to look at cost/curriculum and the possibility of scholarships. that my dad wouldnt dream of sending me to a secular university to study philosophy goes without saying. and i understand the cost difference from his perspective. but something in me is yelling, this is my education! screw money altogether! that's always been my attitude more or less about money, and still is. i don't mind working my way through, and im positive that i could earn some decent scholarships on top of that.

philosophy is both the most fascinating and the most frightening thing ive ever faced. in light of this, c. told me that wherever he goes to study, it would make it a great deal easier to have someone to face it with. not that im the only other geek around, but the idea of c. and i rooming together somewhere and spending hours mulling over aesthetics every night was pretty appealing to us both.

i dont really know what to think at this point. the ideal is marvelous; but right now it seems like a pretty long shot. im going to bring it up with my parents soon, and we'll see where it goes from there. im not nervous at all or really all that scared: just vaguely excited and very tentative. ive learned a lot about the will of God even in the past few months. the idea of discerning God's will has lost a lot of its mysticism for me. its a very personal and tangible thing, and im no longer afraid that i'll accidentally botch it. but that doesn't mean that i'll find God's will agreeable or that it will fit in with my ideal. thus my tentativeness.

to complicate the issue some more:
I corinthians 1:17-31
I corinthians 8:1
the supremacy of love vs. the temporance of knowledge
philosophy as the handmaiden of theology
colossians 2:8
the supremacy of christ

its strange but i thought i was entirely reconciled to the idea of getting my degree at toccoa and of living at home for four years. i even went so far as to caution lyndsey not to jump too quickly at the chance to get away from home if that is her only reason. and i think i was sincere and honest in that. but suddenly its not just an issue of me wanting to get away. there's a great deal more to it than that. the quality of my education takes precedence over pretty much everything else. i have to be careful not to let the added perk of getting away influence me any more in that direction.

reading:
I corinthians
romans
philosophies of art and beauty/ed. hofstadter and kuhns
elliot/the shadow of the almighty
lewis/the voyage of the dawn treader

listening:
j. tillman/every word was split in two
viva voce/welcome mat
radiohead/ok computer
beck/sea change
death cab for cutie/transatlanticism
phil keaggy/the master and the musician
the strokes/room on fire
the microphones/i felt your shape

watching:
late night with conan o’brien
schindler’s list
that 70’s show
seinfeld
tlc

thinking:
blaaaah.

great band names:
british sea power
i almost saw god in the metro
death cab for cutie
fugazi
pedro the lion
belle and sebastian
thomas bly (tehe)

12:56am:
my christian aesthetic.
everything i do necessarily has to have some aesthetic appeal. im very much a perfectionist, and it's usually quite difficult for me to live up to te lofty standard i've set myself. even my relationship to God has to have some sort of artistic appeal; this is horrid, i know, but it does. so im very grateful in an artistic sense to jim elliot for his journals. this is all very wrong. but something about his journals draws me in so that i always keep coming back to them. he's given christian faith an artistic pull. the idea of christian discipline, and his "face-to-the-wind" personality always have an uncanny way of getting me motivated. i realize that i'm a sucker. but it's so worth it.

lots of upheaval in my life. seeing your ideals shift is never easy; in fact it's one of the most frightening, disturbing things that can happen to you.

but it's so worth it.

im learning so much. in spite of being unduly difficult at times, life is beautiful. christ is sufficient, and i'm learning to live as though i had really realized it.

finally i'm getting somewhere.

listening:
interpol: turn on the bright lights
phil keaggy: the master and the musician
death cab for cutie: transatlanticism
radiohead: amnesiac

reading:
italo calvino: the baron in the trees
I & II timothy

sign language:
We used to wander far along green footpaths, my friend T. and I. We took care to be far from home when the dinner-bells rang. Sometimes we would chase each other through the tall grass on either side of the paths. Sometimes we would climb trees in the woods and sit together on the branches. Other times we would wade into the creeks and catch crayfish and find rocks to skip. On hot summer days we would sit on the logs that spanned the small creeks and dangle our small bare feet in the water, and I would listen carefully for birds singing, and try very hard not to take them for granted. Then back on the path, racing up the hill and looking down to the woods at the bottom. Far to the left across the fields we could see T.'s house, perhaps his father on the tractor. On rainy days we would go into the woods and wander all afternoon trying to get lost. But we never could.

But most often we would just wander the paths side by side, our tousled heads tilted downward, sometimes speaking in random voices about what we'd like to be one day, sometimes saying nothing for whole afternoons, always alone in the solitariness of our childhood fraternity.

T.'s father was a farmer, quiet and solemn like his son. This made his laughter all the more joyful, his smile the more rewarding when at last you'd evoked it. He was the strongest man I knew, yet the quiet gaze of his gray-green eyes had the quality of soothing me each time they held me in their strong soft gaze. I loved to drive the tractor, as he would let me sometimes, sitting as tall as I could in the huge worn seat holding the wheel in my small white hands, with T.'s father giving occasional advice or rebuke, as the case may be.

T. was in many ways like his father. He was different, it seemed, in one way only: T. was deaf; or nearly so: in order to hear he used to watch my mouth. At first I pitied him, and spoke louder so that he could hear me. But as time wore on I actually began to envy T. his strange affliction. He bore it with such a dignity, a calm acceptance, and an entire lack of self-pity, that it almost seemed a desirable condition. If by being deaf one could be as good a companion and friend, and indeed as good a person as was T., it struck me as a small price to pay. I was proud of my friend. And when other children would taunt him and call him names he would never hear, I was even prouder.

He was awfully mature, T. was, for a boy of eleven. I in my immaturity forever blundered about, speaking when it was best to keep silent, and speaking of things better left unsaid. I was impulsive, blunt and loud. T. taught me the beauty of silence; when I was with him it was easy to keep silent. It was easy to say nothing, to communicate through a glance or a swift silent action, or better yet not at all, better to just walk along and let our quiet footfalls do all the communicating that was needed. I'm contented, they said, to be here with you and be alone together. But also T. knew when to speak: he seemed to know when I needed to hear his voice, slightly distorted with deafness, but reassuring and quiet in its loudness. It was T. who first showed me companionship, and I've never had a friend quite like him since. It was with him that I was myself, not pretending to be someone different as I did with other people.

What frightened and sobered me was that T. in his turn looked up to me. Because I could hear. Sometimes we would listen to music together, very loud in my room, and it was then that T. would long, intensely and silently, to hear. He never said anything, but sometimes as I watched him sitting on my floor his jaw would clench and he would try very hard to hear all the complexities of the music that were forever denied him. His eyes would squint together and he would lean forward slightly toward the radio, and I wept inside for him. Once, only once, he got up off the floor and put his ear to the radio and listened very hard for a long time. It was so unlike him to push the boundaries of his impairment that when he turned back to me I was looking at him with a face twisted in wonder and sadness and pity. We looked at each other for a long moment, and I think I would have wept then if he hadn't suddenly smiled, a quiet understanding smile that was itself next to weeping. Because for all his understanding and maturity, for all that he had accepted of his disability, he still wondered sometimes how it could have happened to him. And he envied me for my hearing, a good wholesome envy as only T. could have. He must have wondered about all that he was missing, all the beautiful sounds that I in my childishness took for granted. I used to wonder how he could ever have looked up to me, in my foolishness and immaturity; but then it was easy to forget that T. was himself still a child. He understood so much, and yet there was much he did not understand, and he yearned to understand it.

It seemed wrong to me that T. should envy me something which neither of us could help. Discontent was to me the worst evil. I saw in T. a certain rightness, as though deafness was the way he was meant to be; I could not imagine T. any other way. That was why I never could pity him. It seemed to me that people should be content with whatever they are.

It was hard, very hard for T. to accept this. I see that now. To me his deafness was almost mundane, it was the way things were. I wasn't thinking about his future, and how much harder life would before him when he left the cornfields and the little woods. It seemed right and good that T. should be deaf. But I think that T. saw what his life was to be more clearly than I did, and he struggled with this.

here is my new blogger. it was just time, i suppose. my old blog has been dormant for almost a year. it's always nice to begin again. i'm less pretentious now than i was, i hope. so this time around will be a little different. i hereby resolve to post at random intervals. i'm serious. as a matter of fact this blog is private, which makes it little more than a private journal so long as i don't tell anyone. which i'm not planning on doing, at least not for quite some time.

doesn't this template look terrible? my old blog had a different template and looked very classy. but i couldn't find it when i went to start this one up. so my blog looks profoundly awful. it's a good thing no one will ever see it.

there. it's begun.

my old blog