A friend has often remarked that he is grateful for not having an mp3 player. He explains that this forces him to remember and create more music on his own, rather than depending on a piece of electronic equipment.
Being between mp3 players myself, I can see what he means. It’s nice to turn off the radio, and sing a hymn, or try to remember the new piano piece I’m learning. But I’m still saving for a new ‘magic music box’. View Full Post
Sarah Roorda takes a stab in the dark. (And uses italics more than she should)
When you hear “Old Testament” Bible stories told (often for children, although not always), they’re often told as though they were quaint morality plays with a cute, clear-cut moral at the end. David and Goliath is about how God will back you up against your personal enemies, Esther gains courage and self-confidence, Joseph is a good boy and gets rewarded, etc. These may or may not be correct interpretations of the stories (and in the David case I would say
not on account of it being a story about Israel, and I suspect any kid that tried to apply it in a simplistic way in regard to a bully or something might get beat up), but I am doubtful that this approach is really helpful.
After all, at the end of each story in the Bible there is no general sum-up. I can just hear the song from Veggie Tales “What we have learned applies to our lives today. God has a lot to say in his book.” And in the case of Veggie Tales they will pull a verse (or half a verse) from the NT out of context and we’ve all been inspired. View Full Post
Victoria Blake has a story to tell…
Vanity of vanities, says the preacher. All is vanity.
Aida woke late. She was, thankfully, alone. Whatever other deficiencies Helena had, at least she got up on time. Aida rolled out of bed and tossed a corner of the sheet up to the head of the bed. It lay there, wrinkled, like so many ripples coming in to meet the edge of the laundry bucket.
A normal day began with feeding the chickens. Although Aida’s family was the weaving family, they also kept hens for eggs and a cow for milk. The hens were Aida’s responsibility, and the cow was Lysias’s. Sometimes Aida’s soul was offended that her younger brother got a more responsible responsibility, but most of the time she was glad to leave it to him. So Aida fed the hens, and while they were busy clucking down their feed with crusty greedy eyes, she stole their eggs. She wondered if they ever noticed when their eggs were gone. She doubted it. Chickens didn’t have minds, only instincts. Perhaps she only had instincts too. Maybe the chickens seemed to themselves to have minds. Maybe the gods took something out of her room every day, and she never noticed. Maybe the gods just viewed people as chickens, and their offerings as eggs. And then, did the gods themselves have owners? Or did the chickens have subjects? Although, the chickens weren’t exactly subjects. Aida’s mind begun working in profane earnest. They were the chickens of the gods. And if they rebelled? Adventure. View Full Post
John Ahern revisits the haunts of his youth (???),
Let’s say I collaborate with a friend of mine who lives in Buffalo. We decide to chose the first man each of us sees on the Main Streets of our respective towns wearing a leather jacket or the first girls we see wearing pink or the first boys we see with caps backwards. Suppose we give these pairs of people pieces of paper to write a story on. They oblige us and write a story. Now, suppose these two people, one from Grand Junction, CO, and Buffalo, NY, both write stories about a fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico who, after 40 days of not catching anything, finally reels in an enormous marlin. It then gets eaten by sharks.
Elizabeth Ten-Hove writes,
The world I knew is gone without a trace.
The walls and trees, the paths and where they led—
All’s lost behind a dancing veil of lace.
I crunch along as crystals sting my face;
There’s not a sound besides my noisy tread.
The world I knew is is gone without a trace.
Unsure of where I am, I slow my pace
And vainly search for landmarks up ahead:
All’s lost behind a dancing veil of lace.
Disoriented, lost in swirling space,
I wonder: is this where I’ll lay my head?
The world I knew is gone without a trace.
But I am sure of home in any place:
I never am alone, and need not dread.
All’s lost behind a dancing veil of lace.
I turn around and silently retrace
My wayward steps. How faithfully I’m led!
The world I knew is gone without a trace:
All’s lost behind a dancing veil of lace.
Regina Bertilson yammers obsessively,
I wrote this analytical review of the book Ender’s Shadow last fall. If John still has that ridiculous limit on words, well, Psha to him. He deserves a Psha anyways. If you haven’t read Ender’s Shadow (and/or Ender’s Game), I would recommend that you do before reading this, as I spoil a good many things in the story. If you have read the books, well, I hope this will give you more of an understanding of the book. Also, expect more analysis from me in the future. I may analyze an episode or two of Star Trek, since they provide very good material for pondering upon and discussing.
What to say about Holli?
Just a few things.
To begin, within the first week of meeting her boyfriend, she informed him that the gift at the very top of her wish-list for Christmas and her birthday was either a hand and a half blade or a katana. She later informed him that she had decided to forego the wakizashi (to help her parents with finances, some.) Over Christmas 2008, she decided to style her handwriting after that of J.R.R. Tolkien, and when a friend discovered a font almost identical to said handwriting, tweaked her new hand ever so slightly to match that.
Prologue / Chapter I / Chapter II / Chapter IIIA / Chapter IIIB / Chapter IV
~ * ~
I wish I were on yonder hill;
’Tis there I’d sit and cry my fill,
’Til every tear would turn a mill.
Is go dtí tú mo mhuirnín slán.
S. A. Roorda is an aspiring scholar who hopes to spend all of her days locked in an ivory tower contemplating worthless speculations. She will let you be the judge of how close she is getting to this goal. In the meantime she enjoys reading many books (some randomly selected favorites are Mansfield Park, Crime and Punishment, and Freddy Goes Camping), writing about things (especially things she doesn’t understand), and being randomly creative. These she fits in wherever she can when she is not overwhelmed by the daily business of living (such as breathing, sleeping, eating, and remembering to brush her hair).
Sarah has been a Reformed Christian all of her life and hopes to continue so for the remainder of it. She believes that worship is probably the most significant thing any person can do, because it’s what God made us for and the thing that gives order and structure to the rest of our lives. She’s also pretty well convinced that there’s nothing as wonderful on earth as good Christian fellowship, and is delighted by the sheer amount of joy, fun, beauty, goodness, and goofiness that God allows us to experience on a regular basis. It’s not fair. (for instance, Pixar movies are really better than we deserve)
Sarah’s main influences are Walter R. Brooks (author of the Freddy the Pig books), C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, James B. Jordan, and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (even though she is only now beginning to delve into the latter’s works, she has already become fairly familiar with some of his ideas through friends). One thing she believes all these authors have in common is an appreciation for the marvelous and beautiful even in the apparently commonplace. This sort of feeling comes in handy while living in a laid-back place like Iowa, where there are no mountains or beaches, but only miles and miles of astoundingly beautiful (but still wonderfully home-like) farmland. She would like you to know that crops are clothing for the land (and she’s pretty sure this is Biblical imagery, although you’d have to ask Peter Leithart, since she stole the idea from him), and so they should be considered a kind of glory. Think about that the next time you see a cornfield.
Finally, she is still wrestling with one of life’s greatest questions; that is, the question of when commas should be used and to what degree (and, of course, when they should be replaced with semi-colons).
Carson Spratt stands gaping with his mouth open.
I stared and the golden sun
Made the world thin for me, and somehow
All was more glorious,
As if backlit by indescribable happiness
Filtering through a black veil that is rent in parts
Where we peep through at mysteries
Too old for us children.
The grass was not grass,
But a prism that broke up holiness
Into colours for my weakened mortal eyes.
The wind was the breath of peace
Stirring over a watchful land.
The mountain stood unshakeable
A solid psalm to God’s eternality.
And I, myself, a tiny character
Of Act Two in the play
On the stage of this earth.
I’ve forgotten my lines
In awe at my sudden eagle sight.
But now I remember them:
“Thank You. And Amen.”
