Book of Kells

This morning I was reading a book on the Book of Kells (also called The Book of Kells), which I found most informative. I'd picked it up in a castle bookstore in Scotland. This book has a beautiful layout, with a full-page print of a page from the original Book of Kells, and opposite it text discussing it. Among other things, it explained why the four Evangelists were symbolized by a man, lion, ox, and eagle--a point that had always mystified me.

Matthew -- the Man -- His gospel emphasizes Jesus' humanity.
Mark -- the Lion -- His gospel emphasizes Jesus' royalty.
Luke -- the Ox -- His gospel emphasizes Jesus' priesthood and sacrifice.
John -- the Eagle -- He in his gospel "soars to Heaven, as St. Augustine puts it, and gazes on the light of immutable truth with keen and undazzled eyes."

Rather classy, I thought. This may not be the only explanation, but it struck me as a nice solid one. The Book of Kells (the original one) is astoundingly intricate and impressive, and I mean to learn more about it and also learn to illuminate manuscripts.

On dying

"We cannot point to the high virtue of Christian living and the gay, almost mocking courage of Christian martyrdom, as a proof of our doctrines with quite that assurance which Athanasius takes as a matter of course. But whoever may be to blame for that it is not Athanasius." C.S. Lewis, "On the Reading of Old Books"

To which I reply: quite true. But why not??

I've been thinking about dying lately; not that I have any intention of doing so in the near future, but it's unavoidable in my current job. A most melancholy thing has struck me. Hardly anyone hospitalizes gracefully or dies well. Even those who claim that their "faith gives them strength" seem to fall apart when their bodies do, and there's nothing sadder to read than a do-not-resuscitate order of a self-proclaimed Christian.

I don't think that the Church these days really talks about dying much. I'm not sure why. It's pretty likely to happen, like taxes. I'm thinking of two ladies from back home. One said, "If God loves me, He'll heal me," and when she died, some of her family fell away from the faith. It's just not true that God will heal all His children in this world. And then there's a lady who spent her last months with cancer memorizing the saints' words from Revelation. She said she was learning her lines ahead of time.

The other day I came across an article. I wish I could remember what it was in. It was talking about the cost of hospitalization and the difference between people who had hope of an afterlife, and still fought to live, versus the people who had this life only and were fine with a DNR order.

We hate death, but we do not mourn like those who have no hope!

Very good and exciting news

I planted a whole packet of basil seeds a few weeks ago, and a bunch of them came up right away and withered almost immediately. It was heartbreaking. And then, last, as one untimely born, a lone little sprout came up.

And... it stayed up. I've been assiduously putting it in the sunniest spot ever since.

And tonight I noticed it's growing two more little leaves! It's decided to keep growing! HURRAY!

English as a written language

"Some people have no concept of English as a written language." Ben A 3-15-09

I submit a few instances for your consideration. They affect context rather horrifically:

Losing/loosing
Bowls/bowels
Marital/martial

And my personal favorite: "heart faliure."

Well, I thought it was funny...

Sunny with a high of 77

I would just like to announce that it was 77 here today, and more or less sunny. This, after we had so much snow Monday that the public schools were closed three entire days. (The snow's all gone now.) I approve of Richmond weather.

A real mermaid

I loved this story about Weta Workshop (that Weta Workshop!) turning a a lady with amputated legs into a mermaid. :-) She got a functional prosthetic tail made to be used in water, and she even got the makeover to go with it. It's beautiful.

Apparently kids see her in the water and go, "Oh, right, there's a mermaid," but adults think it's really awesome.

Hat tip: Brandywine books.

Snow day

Yesterday was a miserable, chilly, rainy, sleety, hail-ey day. They were predicting snow but I didn't believe a word of it. We came home from church and huddled. With chocolate chip cookies.

But about 5:00 yesterday, it snowed! It really did!

We woke up this morning to find Olwen, and the rest of town, completely covered. That white lump in the foreground is our bush. My work and Jonathan's school were canceled. :-)


I celebrated by making tea and a breakfast casserole, with some El Pinto salsa that Kroger's here carries (!!). We mean to continue huddling inside today, catch up on laundry and taxes and such... and I just challenged Jonathan to a Scrabble duel. I love snow days.

Quote of the day

This quote comes from Thursday last, at small group, comprised of chiefly young couples.

Babies: "Watch out, they're catching." Katie

"They're trying to tell me how to feel"

At first I thought she was just being dumb, but upon reflection, I think it's a cultural phenomenon. I was listening to Taylor Swift yesterday, to her new song "Love Story." It's basically a shameless rip-off of Romeo and Juliet, re-set loosely in contemporary times with a happy ending, and it's pretty cute. But there's this one line that ruins it. "Romeo, save me/ They're trying to tell me how to feel!"

There's also a scene in Sayers' Gaudy Night where Harriet and one of the professors are discussing proper feeling and knowing one's true calling. It doesn't matter so much what you feel, they conclude, "as long as you don't try to persuade yourself into proper feeling." Harriet concurs, noting that "trying to persuade herself into proper feeling" regarding her former lover is what got her into trouble. "You will only know what is of overmastering importance when you have been overmastered by it."

Why is it such a massive crime to try and tell people what's right to feel in a certain situation? Especially if it really will make their lives easier? And in some situations, if there really is a right versus a wrong feeling?

So I propounded this puzzle to my true love about six this morning. We blame the Enlightenment, which knew all about reason but didn't have the foggiest idea what to do with emotion. The Romantics rebelled by making emotion their god and their drug. I think that's where Aeolian harps and the wind and the soul all get mixed up together. (I like that mental image--it makes me think of a pretty woods, with harp-strings going sproing! and flying in all directions.) I further think Postmodernism quietly usurped that line of thought--the Aeolian harp emotion bit, I mean. I suppose, if you're defining your own reality, your emotions are about your only guide and therefore it really is a tyranny for someone to dictate those emotions.

I would go about this entirely differently: in the beginning was God, and He set up reality for us. I keep thinking of phrases like, "Rejoice, O Israel!" and "Husbands, love your wives." Yes, love is a verb and all that, but if it's not a commanded emotion too, I don't want it. Emotion is no longer so important, so bloated, so all-encompassing, and so emotions too can be brought into their proper service.

I also think of Lewis' Abolition of Man and his discussion of Men Without Chests. They have Stomachs--meaning appetites of one sort and another--and they have Heads--meaning reason of one sort and another. It's the Chest, the seat of the emotion, that never gets trained. And when things get a trifle sticky, it's not the Head that says "I am about to get shot and therefore I will stay right here"--it's the Chest that says "Yeah I know I'm about to get shot, but there's this flag, you see," and stays.

I don't want to go overboard and say "Yes! People should dictate emotions to one another all the time!" But I do think that if there's a common reality, there's the possibility for right and wrong feelings in relationship to it. So. Taylor Swift wasn't just being dumb, but I do think she was incorrect. Opinions?

Word of the day

Today's word of the day is "swulten," as in, "God bade us that we not eat, nor we that tree be touching, lest we swulten."

(Aelfric's c. 1005 AD Old English version went, "God bebead us thaet we ne aeten, ne we thaet treow ne hrepoden thy laes the we swulten."--and I updated the eths and thorns to mere th's. I daresay my translation is dreadful.)

It appears from this site that it comes from "sweltan, swealt, swulton, swolten," meaning "die." My Merriam-Webster's dictionary lists the Middle English "sweltan" as the root of "swelter," which would be "to die, be overcome by heat," from the Old English "sweltan," "to die." It also seems to be related to the Old English "sweatan, sweat," meaning "sweat." So it appears when they will surely swulten, they will die of heat.

I'm not sure why Aelfric chose the verb for "die" with warm connotations. It's certainly appropriate, hell-fire being what it is, but I question whether Eve would have been quite so on top of things at that stage of history. My source indicates Aelfric was working from the Vulgate, which uses "moriamur," and "mori" doesn't have particular connotations of heat. Was Aelfric just being creative and forward-hinting? Another possibility is that "sweltan" did not necessarily mean "die of heat" when he used it, but it picked up those connotations later, much like "starvan" didn't specifically mean "die of hunger" until it had been used in connection with too many sieges.

Isn't "swulten" a great word? Jonathan claims he's going to start using it instead of "pwned." I will now put away my Guide to Old English, Traupman's Latin dictionary, Vulgate, Merriam-Webster's, and Bobrick's Wide as the Waters, which started all this, and go to church.