It spoke to my soul

Abraham Piper is so right.

We called our pending offspring "them"... once. Then we discovered what we'd said. :-)

You know you married a law student

...when he bends over a new section of notes and says, "Forcibly resisting arrest, hurrah."

:-)

So that's what the Dream of the Rood is about

This evening I was catching up a bit on blogs, and came across this one from Brandywine Books talking about, of all things, evangelism methods used for the ancient Vikings. How on earth do you show the humility of Christ to warriors with no use for humility?

“Milk first, then meat” is the old formula. For the Vikings, the humility of Christ was meat that they had to be introduced to over time. ...

Warriors understood very well what it meant to go willingly to death. By emphasizing the courage of Christ in His self-sacrifice, the missionaries presented the Gospel story in a way that their listeners could begin to comprehend. The greatest warriors always die in battle. They fall and lie at their enemies’ feet, as if in submission. Their bodies decompose. What is that but humiliation? And yet they are victorious, celebrated in song, for they did not flee and they did not fail their oaths. In the same way (said the preachers) that which looks like defeat and humiliation in the eyes of our flesh can be true victory, if we turn our backs on our sins and turn our hearts to God, the great King who Himself bowed down to death.

The original post quotes a great passage from the Anglo-Saxon Dream of the Rood talking about the Master of mankind hastening to the Cross (the Rood) for death and great victory. It was very moving. I wonder, now, if we've got a copy of the whole poem.

Quote of the day

On the subject of socks that don't match even themselves, thereby defeating the logical law "A, therefore A":

"If I knew, I would say something witty, like 'I'm in your sock drawer subverting your teleology.'" Jonathan

On the subject of pepperoni, which is and is not a meat, especially in reference to Good Friday:

"I guess the cow could say, 'I'm in your pepperoni nuancing your metaphysics.' Then again, I guess the cow would say 'Moo!'" Jonathan

Quote of the day

Quote from today:

"Squirrels are definitely warped by sin." Pastor Shelby during today's sermon.


And, for the fun of it, a quote from last Saturday:

"Do you want to share parsley?" Elizabeth, relating how she greets new neighbors.

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.