A haunting we will go

"There is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their graves before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts, except in our long-established Dutch communities."

--Washington Irving "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

All the futures before us

“The problem of meaning is created by limits, by being just this, by being merely this. The young feel this less strongly. Although they would agree, if they thought about it, that they will realize only some of the (feasible) possibilities before them, none of these various possibilities is yet excluded in their minds. The young live in each of the futures open to them. The poignancy of growing older does not lie in one’s particular path being less satisfying or good than it promised earlier to be — the path may turn out to be all one thought. It lies in traveling only one (or two, or three) of those paths. Economists speak of the opportunity cost of something as the value of the best alternative foregone for it. For adults, strangely, the opportunity cost of our lives appears to us to be the value of all the foregone alternatives summed together, not merely the best other one. When all the possibilities were yet still before us, it felt as if we would do them all.”

— Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (1981)

Found through the blog "more than 95 theses"

An idea for change

In light of some people's despair (which I do not share) over Obama becoming president, thinking this will usher in a godless age (isn't this what some group of people or other think about every new president or ruler?), they would do well to consider Cal Thomas's article Religious Right R.I.P. He suggests that instead of trying to wield "political power for influence" (which hasn't really amounted to much in the past 30 years), evangelicals should instead focus their energy on following the example of Jesus (It always astonishes me how this is an old idea that is always new): living the life they would like to see everyone else live.

A quote: "Too many conservative Evangelicals have put too much faith in the power of government to transform culture. The futility inherent in such misplaced faith can be demonstrated by asking these activists a simple question: Does the secular left, when it holds power, persuade conservatives to live by their standards? Of course they do not. Why, then, would conservative Evangelicals expect people who do not share their worldview and view of God to accept their beliefs when they control government?"

Quote for the day

"Democracy requires of its citizens qualities that it cannot provide."--Jürgen Habermas (German philosopher)

Society news

"Little Otis Pace is in shool again after having been ill for some time." W. Sun, March 5, 1905

(You never know what you'll come across while looking at old newspapers.)

Read

"Over the course of four years I made time to read all of the Harry Potter books out loud to my daughters. If I can do that and run for president, then you can find time to read to your kids."--Barack Obama

Here there be dragons

Fairy tales are more than true,
not because they tell us that dragons exist,
but because they teach us that dragons can be defeated.
G.K. Chesterton

"'Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!'
'Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner,' said Strange. 'That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfections.'"
-from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, p. 586-587

Here is an excerpt from Jesus by James McCauley:

"...And when a dove came to his hand he knew
that hell was opening behind its wings.
He thanked the messenger and let it go;
spoke to the dust, the fishes and the twelve
as if they understood him equally,
and told them nothing that they wished to know."

Poetry has that knack for conveying the emotion of a thing, the full-bodied nature of a drawn out moment. This passage gave me pause, and made me think of Anne Rice's new book Christ the Lord which is a surprisingly good read. Jesus, not quite eight years old, is slowly realizing the totality of his nature, and towards the end, in the culmination of the book, he realizes that everything that is born must die, a realization that carries more weight for him than mortals.

"The farmer and the cowboy should be friends.."

Us girls (or is it we girls?) watched Oklahoma!, starring Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) last night, which led to the discussion on just why we love musicals so much, but our husbands abhor them. (Case in point: Jon announced Tuesday night that he would do anything but watch the President's state of the union speech. He was even willing to watch a movie or go shopping. When I suggested, "Well, we could watch Oklahoma," he said, "Uh... I'd rather watch the state of the union speech.").

I think what bothers them must be the dream sequences, and the spontaneous song and dance that erupt out of the oddest circumstances. We joked that our lives would be much more eventful if we could make episodes out of mundane events, like dinner. We could dance circles around the dining room, belting out lyrics, then assemble in some crazy set-up around and on top of the dining table as we presented dinner with a flourish: "Lamb kebobs! Sweet potatoes! Orange carrots with the raisins on top!"

Here is my new favorite poem:

Via Negativa (by R.S. Thomas)

Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them, too; but miss the reflection.

Negative theology (via negative=negative way) is not, as one might instinctively think, theology that attempts to disprove the existence of God. It is theology that attempts to describe God by what he is not, since he is mysterious and beyond comprehension.

Everything in this quote combines in a bizarre funny way : "Nacho Libre" (June 2), from "Napoleon Dynamite" director Jared Hess, stars Jack Black as a Mexican priest who doubles as a wrestler to raise cash for his orphanage (from cnn.com).

From an essay I am reading:

a lamed-vovnik is one of the 36 hidden saints whose identity is known only to God, and for whose sake alone the world is each moment spared the destruction it deserves.

From a story retold within the essay: How to Pray: Reverence, Stories, and the Rebbe's Dream by Ben Birnbaum

Jewish literature is full of mystical legends like this.

I'm flipping through my stash of quotes. They covered the walls in my dorm-room at Asbury, a stamp of personality on those bland walls. Here's one I copied while spending a quiet Saturday morning at Kinlaw. It was so strange to me, as though I was hearing a story of my child-self from my mother.

"The deaf are said to be rigid and immature, impulsive and egocentric, cautious but lacking good internal controls, naive about the motives of others and short on empathy. Possibly the most tantalizing of all, they appear much less susceptible to obsessive and depressive ailments. In short, a childhood full of confusion, ambiguity, and isolation generally produces not a psychotic, but a particular sort of eccentric."

This was one of those moments where you suddenly realize with cold-water clarity something that has always been so naturally a part of yourself. It's like those moments at work when a deaf person approaches me with a question, and I slip into sign as easily as if it were my native tongue. I feel like I am seeing a long-ago dream of myself while I am helping them out.

My deafness has always been a source of confusion. Most of the deaf community have embraced their disability as their identity. I have not. For me, it is usually just a physical thing, a remnant of a high fever that ravaged my inner ear. Yet it has played a big role in shaping who I am, and this quote reminds me of it.

I'm quite glad I haven't turned out a psychotic.

In honor of Halloween:

"There is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their graves before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts, except in our long-established Dutch communities."
-Washington Irving, from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"