Of Priests & Poets

I do not question that we need priests to remind us that we shall one day die, but I insist that we also need another type of priest, the poet, to remind us that we are not yet dead.

-G.K. Chesterton

Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.

The title of this post is a quote by Rabbi Abraham Heschel.  As I have mentioned before in previous blogs, my habit continues of reading multiple books at a time.  I find though often that I am drawn to works in stages of life when I seem to need the wisdom or insight they contain.  So often, I have a picked up a book that I have previously read, yet I discover something on every page, like it is a brand new work.  Thus, Heschel's book God In Search of Man is currently being revisited.  The profound simplicity of his words and his ability to communicate  astound me every time I read him.  Below is something I read today:

It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society.  It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats.  Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid.  When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion – its message becomes meaningless.

True Words

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.

-Eugene Ionesco

For a flower, a beautiful flower...

It's that time of year again.  It's May in England.  For five days out of this month every year, in Chelsea, London the Royal Horticultural Society hosts the most prestigious garden event, probably in history.  The event has been held at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea since 1913, but it was first held in Kensington in 1862.  

There are around 600 exhibitors, including 22 show gardens, 22 small gardens, 100 floral exhibitors, and about 300 garden product exhibitors.  Exhibitors come from all over the world, from Sri Lanka to Holland, from Germany to Jamaica.  There are a myriad of awards to be won, the most coveted being the Gold medal.  The awards were announced this morning and the exhibit is open through Saturday.  According to the website, 157,000 visitors will come through the show.  Monday is Preview Day, in which the Royal Family has a private tour.  Tuesday and Wednesday are reserved for the RHS members, while Thursday through Saturday is open to the public.  

RHS staff, exhibitors, and contractors begin planning 18 months in advance, so plans for the 2009 show are already in the works.  It takes 800 people 3 1/2 weeks to build the show.  Construction includes 5km of piping, 185 toilets, enough canvases to cover 6 football pitches, and the showground covers 11 acres.  The Great Pavilion covers 12,000 sq m and 17,000 sq m is relaid following the show.  Around 250 new plants have been introduced at the show over the past four years.  According to the caterers, 49000 glasses of Pimm's, 5000 bottles of champagne, 54000 cups of tea and coffee, and 28000 sandwiches will be consumed during show week.  

The predominant color in the gardens this year is, well...green.  :) Check out the BBC website to see all the pictures and videos surrounding this wonderful week.  

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more!

I just witnessed something quite extraordinary.  Really, I had to rub my weary eyes and stare in wonder before it occurred to me what was actually taking place.  

As I slowly approached my dorm today, the sun beautifully beating down, the birds a-twittering, the various tanned (and not-so-tanned) bodies sprawling themselves out across the quad, I realized that something was a little different about the building I currently call home.  *I say "home" in the outside-entrance motel, "I'll only be here for a short time" kind of tone.*  Nevertheless, I see in front of me the good 'ole campus police Segway parked outside with a chatty group of girls.  Intrigued?  I certainly was.  However, I must admit I was not quite prepared for what I was about to see.  

I'm thinking flooding (which happened last week), maybe even an unwanted male aka stalker (has also taken place), my mind was bubbling with possibilities.  However, when I finally arrived, the girls simply smiled and pointed upwards.  As I looked up at the middle of our semi-circular dorm, I couldn't believe my eyes.  There, standing on the quasi-balcony, meant more for decoration than anything else, especially that now this building (according to Mr. Police man on the Segway) is about 80 years old, stood a boy.  So, had it not been for the gargantuan sign draped over the railing, the immediate question that surfaced in my mind was, what is a boy doing on the balcony/not balcony, which could at any moment collapse, of a girl's dormitory in the middle of the day?  Well, the sign served it's purpose and explained it all it read, "__(person's name), will you go out with me?"  

*pause for quizzical looks and subsequent awwww's*

I stood there in wonder for a moment, as I see this boy start warming up on a guitar (as if the sweltering heat was not warming him up enough).  The girls turn to me and say, he's going to play a song for her, but she's taking too long getting ready.  At which point, another girl (apparently the source inside) yells from a window that she was coming but still straightening her hair...My ladies, another reason why one should not spend too much time getting ready.  You never know what could be awaiting you outside, so put that straightener down for crying out loud!  

I stayed for a few minutes chatting, realizing this girl had no intention of finishing her hair soon, I went up to my room.  Thankfully my room's window is on the inside, the same side of the balcony, so I opened my windows and kept on with my business.  A few minutes later I hear this chorus of "AWWWW's" a "WHAT?!" and the first few keys of Lifehouse...it had begun.  So I poked the better part of my upper body out of the window, gawking with the best of them.  

When I withdrew from my obvious position of gaping, I realized that, apart from the group of girls gathered outside, there were others hanging out of their windows as well.  Then I asked myself, what just happened?  Why, in the midst of a very busy day, does all of a sudden one boy draw so much attention?  I have one word for you.  Chivalry.

As much as the modern woman may decry the old ways and traditions of romanticism, girls are suckers for chivalry.  Every little girl dreams of her knight in shining armor, slaying the dragon, and rescuing her from her tower of despair.  And even though today the boy was on the balcony instead of the girl, it reached back and touched something that we all long to experience.    

Oddly enough, I had just moments ago finished a conversation with a girl who was calling a boy by some choice words because he had been leading various girls to believe things that were not true (blah, blah, blah).  Yet, days before this I have been in the throws of making "I Hate Boys" mixes on my iTunes and sending out various Shakespearean insults.  So, though it may be momentarily, my hope is restored.  I am the last person who will say that I believe that there is a prince charming out there for everyone galloping around on his great white steed.  It is not that I don't believe that true, fairy tale love exists, I do, I have seen it, but I'm not predisposed to think that as a girl that is my entitlement.  But as Ionesco would say, "Let's not go into that, miss, that would take us much too far..."  

So, congratulations little balcony boy, you successfully, momentarily restored the hope of pessimistic girls, that good men who want to pursue a woman in creative ways, still exist!  Chivalry is not dead!  It yet exists in the heart, though they may be few, they prevail!

An Experiment In the Absurd

As my first semester back at University comes to a close, I'm beginning to believe more and more that the title of this blog embodies the past 3 months.  As I have been told on many occasions, I retain a distinct inability to "break back in" to anything.  If I am going to do something (especially something that I have done before), I will jump back in headfirst, often with a few casualties, generally sleep and sanity, but in the end it works out.  

I have always functioned that way and I have been relatively successful in doing so, although there are those moments of extreme high stress, complete with excessive hyper-ventilation, ringing in the ears, seeing spots...but it always ends at some point.  I have never been exceptionally graceful, and this is just yet one more proof, that I generally always come crashing to the finish line in everything, barely intact, bloodied and bruised, with some areas of spotty memory, yet there I am, with a wink and a smile...successful in my task, though it took nothing short of an act of G-d to get me there.  

I used to sometimes like to think that I approach things in such a manner, because I knew that I work well under pressure and I liked to prove it.  However, on the contrary, the great irony of life is that though we like to think that we do things out of the sheer brilliance of our own understanding...I realize now, something quite the opposite.  Although my method is not necessarily the most effective, and resulted in a severe diminishment of my mother's health and sanity throughout my high school years, it shows me one thing.  I can do nothing in my own power, and most everything that I have accomplished has the evidence of G-d's mercy and grace all over it, because there is no way that I should have been able to accomplish it in any way, shape, or form.  

And so...all that to say, I have yet another testament to G-d's overwhelming mercy.  This past week has been quite the experiment in gauging how well I really have recovered from the fiasco that has been the past 2 years, and thus far I have emerged, more successful than I ever thought possible.  One wonderful thing that I am involved with here on campus is the theatre department.  I have loved being active in something creative again, and it has been a perfect environment for me to do so.  I have always gravitated to backstage when it comes to theatre, and stage managing is something I just love to do.  So, we had a performance back in March, an original play by our director, Scot Lahaie, Gloria Dei.  Then, we began preparations to do 2-short one-act plays by Romanian-French playwright, Eugene Ionesco, the master of absurdity.  "The Bald Soprano" and "The Lesson" are comedic works of brilliance, I'm still not sure how a mind could create such absurdity in such an intelligible (almost) way.  Needless to say, due to unforeseen circumstances, the night before "The Bald Soprano" opened (last monday) we realized that one of our cast members was unable to perform...one of our male cast members.  Thus, in fashion of a stage manager needing to make sure everything runs smoothly, I was nominated, to play a man, in an absurdist play, in 24 hours (which fyi, I've never acted, minor detail).  Can you see the inevitable act of G-d looming on the horizon?  Well, G-d was truly merciful, our director was merciful, my fellow actors were merciful and wonderful and it turned out brilliantly.  

 NOW, if that was not enough (some might say that I push my luck or test the edges, pulling on the reservoirs of grace as often as I do, I simply reply that I like to keep G-D on His toes, and I have to believe that He enjoys rescuing me from my pit)...We had another set of unforeseen circumstances, leading to me being in the play that takes place this week (i.e. tomorrow).  However, I do get to be a woman in this one, of which I am extremely excited (not to mention thankful, as my face still has not quite recovered it's first layer of skin from the perpetual application and removal of facial hair adhesive).  We are still in the polishing stage, so I'm sure I'm going to be swiping my mercy card like a teenage girl with her daddy's credit card, but thus is the love of my Heavenly Father for me.  

Thus, concludes my musings on my journey through the absurd, only to find myself back where I began, with grace.  

The couples :)

My lovely, Traci aka Mrs. Smith

The men, 'er something....

Got Livermush?

Well, Marion, North Carolina apparently has an abundance.  Enough of an abundance to have a whole festival around said horrifying subject.  Yes, believe it...It is the annual Livermush Festival, which takes place this year on June 7.  The official even description reads: 

Livermush Festival is an annual festival that has the feel of a county fair. Activities include a kids korner with rides and face painting, bands, homemade jellies and jams, a variety of food vendors,crafts, frozen livermush toss and dont forget all the livermush you can eat... Come Join the fun

Really?  I have heard of some strange gatherings around some strange objects, foods, animals, whatever, in my lifetime, but this is one of the strangest.  And yes, well, as much fun as a frozen livermush toss sounds, I will have left the state by that particular date, so I won't be able to partake of the fun...the tears are flowing. 

New?

Since we need official recognition of these sorts of things...Nothing for the fact that modern man is now so tolerant he can barely see the wood for the trees, and if he could, would understand the underlying principles of these "new vices" which, by far, are not new...As the article states, "Modern times bring with them modern sins" or is it rather, modern times breeds tolerance, which then allows things that have always existed manifest themselves in shiny new ways?  As the saying says, my friends, there is nothing new under the sun...

How to...

   There is a little book...surprise, surprise, eh?...This book came out about two years ago, and I have been slowly working my way through it. It is entitled, Never Hit a Jellyfish With a Spade.  Odd title, yes, and honestly with a title like that the author could have gone anywhere with the book, and more than likely it would not have seemed absurd.  However, this gentleman did decided to invest in a subtitle that gave a little clarification to his prior statement.  The subtitle reads, How to Survive Life's Smaller Challenges.  Well, thank you, clarification is always a wonderful thing...this is totally apart from the fact that I never considered encountering a jellyfish, and just so happening to have a spade on hand, as one of life's smaller challenges, but never-mind that.  

   The book really is quite clever, and witty to boot.  I just wonder where the inspiration came from really.  Anyway, back to what it is.  Essentially, it is a "How-to" book..evidenced by the fact that every chapter begins with "How to..." and then proceeds to tell us what exactly the author is going to instruct us how to do.  There are a myriad things, everything from how to buy a pair shoes to how to win at sports day, from how to sneeze to how to be suave, from how to be a revolutionary to how to run a charity shop, and the list continues.  It really is a wonderful little book, and though I don't know that I will use the vast majority of the advice that is in it, it is good for a little laugh, and I'll probably at various times, will post a little section here.  

   On that note, in true British style (did I mention this is a British book?), here is the how-to on making a good cup of tea:

  A good cup of tea is one you can offer your plumber with no risk that he will then link up your bathroom taps with your electricity supply.  This rules out any kind of fruit or herbal tea.  The only possible exception to this is if your plumber shows up and says, 'Any chance of an herbal infusion, love?'  There has been no evidence of this happening so far in recorded history. 

  Other weirdo teas don't count either.  Early Grey tastes like someone has dropped a cigarette in dishwater and people who drink it tend to wear loose clothing and get tired easily.  Similarly, steer clear of teas that sound like a developing world folk band, such as lapsang souchong.  Real tea comes in bags, and that doesn't mean like raffia sacks in a delicatessen.  If you can't buy your tea in boxes of 240 bags, then you're being sold a pup.  Real tea is what the army refers to as NATO Standard.  This is a dark brown colour with full-fat milk and two heaped sugars.  Anything less and NATO would be seriously weakened.  

   Here's how to make it.  While waiting for the kettle to boil, put one bag in the bottom of your mug.  Some people boast that they can make ten cups of tea from one bag and you'll find them hanging out the used ones to dry.  It's people like this who are mostly responsible for Britain's economic decline.  

   Pour on the water and then add milk.  Then get your teaspoon out and give the bag a good bashing.  THis is where the artistry of tea making resides.  The trick is to swill the bag around until your tea is slightly weaker than desired.  You then give the bag a little squeeze with your thumb to bring it up to strength.  Just a squeeze until your thumb burns.  

   Give the tea a preliminary stir to check for strength.  Only add more milk as a last resort as it's impossible to add a drop from a 4-pint plastic carton.  Unless you've got the reactions of Zorro, a drop from one  of these beasts tend to be about half a pint.  

   Finally, add sugar.  Two sugars is the norm for working people.  Tea without sugar is an admission that what you do in life doesn't require that much effort.  If someone else is making tea for you, then it's best to ask for three sugars because people who don't take sugar can't stir tea properly (generally because they haven't got enough energy).

Thank you, Guy Browning, for your little addition to the humor in all our lives.  

Latest and Greatest

Right now I am sitting in the Mac computer lab at my school. I think it is relatively appropriate for my first blog from school to be concerning Mac. I mean, I AM a full-blooded, whole-hearted convert...a proud owner of a 15-inch MacBook Pro. Alas, I am not on my own computer, but working on any Mac is sufficient.

But let's get to the real point of my post...Today, January 15, 2008, Mac (not surprisingly) has introduced yet another ground-breaking model of a computer...MacBook Air. Now, you ask youself, is there really anything else that these people could come up with? Oh, that is just the beginning...from wireless downloads of applications from other computers (even PCs) to renting movies on iTunes...They have certainly thought of everything, and it's a computer built for the wireless world in which we are living today.

Check out the tutorial, by clicking on the title of this blog.

Prepare to be awed and amazed.

Revisited

I am supposed to be packing my car right now, but you know...Today, I leave for school. Not that this is a new thing for me, in fact, this is something that I have done before, it's just being revisited...in a new way. Matter of fact, I did this exact thing about 18 months ago, packed up a car and headed to North Carolina. But as I told my friend the other day...I feel like I'm doing the exact same thing I did a year and a half ago, but with a little more water on the bridge. What that actually means, I think I will find out. What I do know is that I am going into this new, but old chapter, with a heap of perspective, a dash of wisdom (maybe?), a touch of age (let's be honest), and a whole lot more readiness...

Get It Out!

"The greatest ideas in the world don't mean anything if they don't get outside the thinker's head."

I have posted this statement before...It was a very long time ago, but I did. It is my inspiration for this year...I AM going to blog, I AM going to write more, and I could continue but it would really just be hot air, until I actually do it...

Words Revisited

Well, once again, I have been remiss in the blogging world! I don't know how many times I have started again, only to stop once more. Needless to say the past year has been harried, to say the least, but an accelerated growing process. That's one way of putting it. As a result, I have decided that as I step into a new place in the next month...new, but familiar...that the blogging must commence again.

On that note, I shall leave you with a poem:

Happy the Man

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

-John Dryden-
1631-1700

The Beauty of the Word

I have always known, it has been there, right in front of me, I knew what it was, what it was about, I knew that it was rich, I knew that it was the greatest work ever written...yet, I have been struck...I have been drawn. As of late, the Lord has been working on my heart to reach deeper and further into His word, and I have been struck by its beauty. Oh, the beauty of the truth! What an amazing gift that we can read a book and know, undoubtingly that every word it says is good and true and beautiful!


"Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord has been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and lilke a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He has oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul t the death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors."


-Isaiah 53

Finding A Balance

Here is a passage from The Screwtape Letters, by one of the greatest apologists of his time, C.S. Lewis. This excerpt is a poignant exhortation to Christians to not be complacent in their faith and to be wary of religion that becomes diluted over time.


"Screwtape offers ways to cleverly exploit the Patient's dry spell:


'But there is an even better way of exploiting the trough; I mean through the patient's own thoughts about it. As always the first step is to keep knowledge out of his mind. Do not let him suspect the law of undulation. Let him assume that the first ardours of his conversion might have been expected to last and ought to have lasted, forever, and that his present dryness is an equally permanenct condition. Having once got this misconception well fixed in his head, you may then proceed in various ways. It all depends on whether your man is of the desponding type who can be tempted to despair, or of the wishful-thinking type who can be assured that all is well. The former type is getting rare among humans. If your patient should happen to belong to it, everything is easy. You have only got to keep him out of the way of experienced Christians (an easy task nowadays), to direct his attention to the appropriate passages in scripture, and then to set him to work on the desperate design of recovering his old feelings by sheer will-power, and the game is ours. If he is of the more hopeful type, your job is to make him acquiesce in the present low temperature of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all. In a week or two you will be making him doubt whether the first days of his Christianity were not, perhaps, a little excessive. Talk to him about 'moderation in all things.' If you can once get him to the point of thinking that 'religion is all very well up to a point', you can feel quite happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all - and more amusing.'"

My Goodness! My Guinness...is Red!

Guinness...The Godfather of all Stouts...The Nectar of the Irish Gods...
The "Black Stuff"...


...is undergoing a bit of a makeover this month. According to Diageo, the world's largest alcoholic drinks group and the owner's of Guinness, Guinness launches a trial of this intriguing new draught this month in 142 pubs owned by Mitchell & Butlers. The new Guinness Red uses a lighter barley for the ruby red colouring; yet, will maintain the creamy head of its traditional, darker predecessor and, much to a drinker's delight, its original price. In addition, it will maintain its 4.1 percent alcohol level and will be brewed at the traditional St. James Gate Brewery in Dublin. The trial period will probably last 3-9 months and is one of many trials that Guinness has released.


So, dear, Guinness drinkers alike worldwide...drink on! Just don't be alarmed at the tinge of your draught...it's a purposeful snafu!


Guinness Factoids:
-Guinness is served in 150 countries worldwide.
-10 million glasses of Guinness are consumed every day.
-Though heavily associated with Ireland, the parent company owning Guinness has been headquartered in London since 1932.

The Greatest Blessing

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I consider one of the greatest blessings in life to be friendship. I have been blessed to come into contact with so many wonderful people over the course of my life, and beyond that I have been blessed to call many of them my close and dear friends. There are many different kinds of friends...From ones that you see regularly, to ones that you may go months without speaking with, and yet when you do, it is as if you had just spoken the day before. From dear, close friends who are merely separated by distance, to acquaintances that grow and blossom into beautiful friendships.

As we walk through this life friends are one of the greatest gifts the Lord can give us. People to laugh and cry with, hope with, mourn with, have faith with...people for us to have, so we can encourage each other in our walk.



As Emerson states with friends we, "can afford to be stupid with them," which I consider one of the greatest blessings of all. Because, to be stupid with a person does not just mean that you are "senseless" it means that you can be yourself, there are no boundaries, you're allowed to throw caution to the wind and truly be you (which does, as you can see in a couple of the pictures does mean a bit of senseless fun). One of my favorite quotes on friendship is by C.S. Lewis, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What?! You Too?! I thought I was the only one.'"



I am blessed, blessed to have so many friends. Friends to learn from, walk with, and love.

Unfortunately...I didn't have pictures of everyone...but I love you all!

Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.


William Cowper
1731-1800

Blue & Orange Country

BOISE BRONCOS WIN 2007 FIESTA BOWL!!!!!

So, I haven't posted in...three months, and so I thought it would be appropriate to come back to the blogging world at the New Year, with something truly exciting. The David and Goliath experience of the BCS series...one of the greatest wins in the history of college football...the Boise State Broncos beating the Oklahoma State Sooners, in Arizona, in one of THE most exciting games ever witnessed in college football.

Boise is definitely famous for one thiing in this country and that is it's Smurf Turf, but often times, people tend to forget that they're prety good at the football part too. The Broncos came in as the definitive underdogs, commentators all over the networks felt assured of the stability and toughness of the Sooners. Yet, from the get go, the underdog fought, and he fought hard.




If you missed the game, or turned the game off for some reason, go find the recap on the television or internet somewhere. However, you wouldn't have been the first to fall asleep, even Florida coach admits to dozin off: "I hate to say this, I fell asleep and my wife kept hitting me. She said it was the greatest football game she ever saw." Amen and amen.









And so, the Broncos finished off their year 13-0...the perfect season...with the perfect game...

And there, second in from the left, is the athletic director, my Uncle Gene.

Daily Reminders

So a lot of life has been happening, but I want to share something that I came across again today that I think is a wonderful reminder...It is headed as the Marks of a True Christian, in Romans 12:9-21.

“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited. Repay no one for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."