I go to the best high school ever. Maybe the best educational institution ever. I'll hold judgment until I spend a few years in college. But nobody likes admitting their ignorant of the future, even though it's the most ridiculous thing to be confident of, so maybe I will claim it's the best educational institution ever. But that's why I wonder: how confident was God that Jesus would be taken care of on Earth. Of course God knew, but would Jesus be fully human if his life wasn't subjected to the mundainity of human existance? See, this all started when my amazing, stupendous, I want to grow up to be like him headmaster (I LOVE having a headmaster!) said that Jesus' coming (Christmas, however odd that is to our modern minds) was a great act of humility. And of course it doesn't take much in the way of a spiritual life to realize that Jesus came down and died for people that hated him. You'd be the nicest person in the world if you lived like that. It might only take a day to understand when people love you so much they do stuff you hate, but when people you hate do stuff you hate you have to try to be like Jesus, which takes a lifetime. And some people never do it. I digress. So Jesus' coming was an act of humility in a different way, because he made himself vulnerable. Jesus scraped his knee (and bled real, red, juicy, gushing blood, not ambrosia) and other boys picked on him! And he was TEMPTED. So you can either say that this is proof God is rediculous and organized religion is foolish, and that is (it pains me to say this) a fair read of this story. But as Aristotle (I think?) said "it behooves the learner to believe", and as Augustine says over and over (paraphrased) "you can't get to God if your proud", so for all the humble, believing souls out there: JESUS LOVED YOU SO MUCH THAT HE SCRAPED HIS KNEE FOR YOU.
GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GREAT! GOD IS EXCELLENT!
It's not nearly as mundane as you might think! It's miraculous. It's complete mystery. It's incredible!
After I spend a few years in college I think I will also stop using excessive capital letters, but hopefully not, because sometimes God is so good to you the least you can do is give him capital letters. It's like giving God the double highfive instead of the one handed variety. It's not fair how good God is to us. God is always watching over you, and if you want to do something stupid, he's there to stop you! I wish I truly loved God and all his little schemes.
JESUS!
December 18, 2008 | |
More of Edward Estlin
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It's neat even more so because it uses some choice language. Early on in my blogging history I made the claim that choice language has a purpose, when used with discretion, as a conscious choice, and I'm no flip flopper (for life is no parenthesis). And how else could you address a disgusting problem than with disgusting language? Proccede with caution:
the boys i mean are not refined
the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night
one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined
they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite
the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss
they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance
Some people just don't capitalize
December 17, 2008 | |
E.E. Cummings didn't. I wish I knew definitively if Cummings wrote cynically. I'd guess not, but he should have. Auden got it better I think. The first:
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love
whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time
that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
And the second:
(From Prospero to Ariel)
Will a Miranda who is
No longer a silly lovesick little goose,
When Ferdinand and his brave world are her profession,
Go into raptures over existing at all?
Probably I over-estimate their difficulties;
Just the same, I am very glad I shall never
Be twenty and have to go through that business again,
The hours of fuss and fury, the conceit, the expense.
Links Galore!
December 14, 2008 | |
I know I'm two days late for a link post, but all those traditionalist "Friday Link Post" bloggers can eat it!
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The intelligent and thoughtful Good Thunder graciously corrected my errant post about The Feast of The Immaculate Conception.
But the scientists out there didn't lose the battle yet! According to our friend Franz Karl Naegele you calculate the estimated date of birth by taking the last menstrual period , add a year, subtract three months and add seven days to that date. So it'd all look something like:
March 25
- 3 months = December 25
+7 days = January 1
But then again Jesus could be born 7 days early...
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I saw two comercials on Nickelodian that I couldn't help but laugh at:
There was a time when little girls took care of real babies. How laughabal is it that the little girls of our generation take care of virtual kids!
Don't skip out... watch it all, it only gets better in the last 3/4ths. Nick actually made a game where kids go around shooting toxic chemicals. The youngins can even reduce their CO2 emmissions, as if they had any in the first place. Dennis Prager argues that "the war against tobacco is a symptom and cause of a shallower society. It has done far more harm to America than tobacco." We'll have a generation that thinks driving a car is worse than lieing pretty soon.
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I have never thought of what biblical figure I'd want to be, but Good Thunder chose John the Baptist. I might want to be Solomon. Reading Augustine's Confessions I stumbled on this proverb today: Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee (Proverbs 9:8). You'd have to be pretty wise to deal with 1000 wives/concubines, especially in a time when half of the men out there can't stick with one.
I love how ragged he looks! Give up all your worldly convinces, bath in rivers, eat bugs for dinner and do the work of God! Amen!
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President Bush got a shoe thrown at him! Pretty good reaction time huh?
I guess it's not too odd of a choice.
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Do The Math brought some interesting stuff to light!
And "they tried to get me to hate white people, but someone would always come along and spoil it." Most people can hate someone they know. Sometimes a good guilt trip does my soul good: I remember that Jesus died for people who hated him.
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I want to remind the world that Obama isn't President yet, and in fact he won't be the President-Elect until tommorrow (December 15th).
And I continualy laugh at the close-to-home Coleman v. Franken escapade. This year my excellent, amazing, incredible highschool bought a shinny Scantron machine, and there have been no mishaps filling out the forms yet. And if there were, we'd get the question wrong. Now why can't America be as smart as highschool students?
And why would you alight Mrs. Palin's church? I'm glad they held service elsewhere today! Stick it to 'em.
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The favorite, Miss. Russia, won it all. I'm glad we can judge young woman's beauty in a time when we refuse to judge people based on how they dress, speak or act. But even this messed up reality is proof of the existance of God. Don't think I can do it? Watch! (After this brief picture)
(Miss Russia herself)
Despite national differences, tastes in beauty differ little.
And why is this? Not because of nurture. It's because of nature!
Certain parts of the female anatomy have instinctual draws, sure, but what primitive man would comment on the beauty of Miss. Bosnia-Herzegovina's (my personal favorite, only because of her country of origin) face. Nope... it's bigger than instinct.
And what is part of man's nature, yet more distinctivly human than instinct?!? THE MORAL LAW! God is GOOD, God is GREAT, God is EXCELLENT!
Miss America's greatest achievement "is being accepted as a member of the Entertainment Revue"
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John Cage's Indeterminacy.
" However, to come back to my story. A girl in the college there came back backstage afterward
and told me that something marvelous had happened. I said, “What?” She said, “One of the music majors is thinking for the first time in her life.” Then at dinner (it had been an afternoon concert), the Head of the Music Department told me that as he was leaving the concert hall, three of his students called, saying, “Come over here.” He went over. “What is it?” he said. One of the girls said, “Listen.” "
Advent!
December 10, 2008 | |
I love celebrating seasons of the church. Not because they mark historical dates but because they remind us of themes we can forget in our faith life. Think of how ridiculous celebrating dates as historical markers is? The Feast of The Immaculate Conception didn't even exist until 1476. The room for historical error, especially considering the historical accuracy of the times was plainly high. And even beyond that, the rediculously short pregnancy, or rather long pregnancy, considering that Christmas is less than a month away, would be odd indeed. Even more, why would it be at all important to your faith life to believe that Mary concieved on the 8th of December? Some people look at this and use it as evidence for why all of us religions types are crazy but they forget it's all about reminding us of themes.
On December 8th we celebrated the feast of the Immaculate Conception. A teacher of mine had us sing Happy Birthday. Being a man much consumed in the significance of actions he didn't tell us why we were singing, but my guess is we were reiterating the point that life begins at conception and that celebrating Jesus' coming. Most folks would sing Happy Birthday to Jesus of December 25th, but not at my school! But when I got beyond the pithy humor I was glad to be reminded of the theme of the day: The Virgin Mary. It struck me that she was perfect, without any sin. I can't go a day without sinning, and when ever I think I do I know my conscience has grown lax. And think of how lucky a guy Joseph was to marry a perfect women! There was a new post up at Modestly Yours that day and it became plain to me that The Virgin Mother cares about those women and how they act and dress. That she would even care about us is miraculous: God at least made us... you could (hubristicly and probobly hereticly) say he has a vested intrest in our success but what does Mary care about us? And if Mary cares about us so much and has so little reason to how can man care so little about his fellow man when he has all the reason in the world?
Free Jazz
December 07, 2008 | |
I wrote this as part of a larger speech I am going to deliver on Jazz. I thought it came out pretty well:
The term free-jazz is frightening to most because we have been taught to believe that banging on cans with spoons can be legitimized under the term “free-jazz” but like all music free-jazz can be looked at objectively. You need to distinguish between good music and bad music, and then good music you like and bad music you like. The free-jazz of Ornette Coleman may repulse your ears but to say that it is bad music I would argue is ignorant. To say that banging on cans is good music is ridiculous. Free-jazz is only slightly different than what we have been calling jazz all along. Free jazz eliminates all structure to the music. But jazz has little structure in reality. The most structured jazz song will have a written melody and written chord changes that are strictly adhered to. Jazz musicians had been improvising melodic lines in their solos since it’s inception and Miles Davis almost eliminated chord changes for jazz with his modal expeditions in Kind of Blue. It was not a great leap to decide to compose the melody of the tune on the spot and establish the tonality as the solo saw fit. Really the free-jazz musician is doing what any classical composer does, but while it took Beethoven 6 years to write his 9th symphony free jazz musicians compose instantly. It may seem like I’m downplaying free-jazz but in reality this was a huge step in jazz. You could play whatever you wanted to, whatever you heard going on in your head instantly. The freedom from convention that John Coltrane sought came to complete fruition. Yet this didn’t come without flaws as every great innovation does. The folks who were still listening to jazz lost the ability to say what was good and what wasn’t. Bad music was hailed as revolutionary because it was new. Even more distressing, iconic figures enjoyed instant popularity of every work they put their name on, no matter what it’s quality. Once again jazz became comic this time through Ornette Coleman. No doubt his music was revolutionary. His “The Shape Of Jazz To Come” is a landmark album in jazz. But unfortunately after that everything he layed his name to was hailed as genius. The Bad Plus, a popular jazz group today posted a piece about an Ornette Coleman chord change that encompassed all 12 musical notes, but in reality there was no A; only 11 notes were there. This lead to the response, “maybe this is a sly commentary on Ornette's essence - like, he doesn't need all 12 tones to actually have 12 tones?”. When Ornette decided to pick up a trumpet and violin and do what any parent of a 5 year old would call make noise but what jazz critics called genius one has to wonder. In another humorous yet ridiculous plot Ornette threatened the admittedly promiscuous women who hung out in jazz clubs at the time saying he would castrate himself if they did not leave him alone. He never did, but to seriously make such a claim necessitates mental instability.
Bratz Dolls
December 06, 2008 | |
You go Barbie!
Dakota Combo
December 04, 2008 | |
They say in church communities that without youths the community will die, and that with them it flourishes. The music scene is the same way, especially because of the connection between youth and advances and music. I have no doubt that the Minneapolis music scene (which is surprisingly strong for such an otherwise dull state) will thrive for years to come. I sometimes wonder how I ended up playing with such great players. So come to the Dakota and support live music (I feel like I've made it now that I've had an opportunity to throw out the cliche musicians phrase!).
Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known
December 03, 2008 | |
I'm writing a Symphony for Chorus in short to try and get money for college. I should have started 5 months ago but yesterday I embarked, and since I long ago said I'd never write lyrics again I needed to find some poetry. I decided on William Wordsworth's 5 "Lucy Poems". One nice thing about putting the poetry to music is that you memorize the poetry by accident. Check this out:
Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.
My initial thought was that Billy Wordsworth was wispering sweet nothings in his lover's ear about the shiver's she sends up his spine. But I'd contend that it is really much deeper than that. "Strange fits of passion" can be read as the moments when love of God overwhelms the soul and all you can do is shout "God is awesome". And "the Lover" can also be thought of as God, who unceasingly loves perfectly. So you have 4 things he can be saying then (pardon the ineloquent language):
1) I tell her how great she is
2) I tell God she is great
3) I tell her how great God is
4) I tell God how great God is
I think the 4 lines encompass all 4 interpretations. Wordsworth and Lucy (if she ever existed) aren't just a lustful grouping. To Wordsworth (and probobly only in Wordsworth's at this point slightly irrational mind), Lucy parallels the divine. The passionate response to God that comes in private prayer is paralleled with the response that company with Lucy brings. And Wordsworth is seemingly humbled (and embarrassed) by both. He only says how perfect the Lucy/God parallel is in life to one of them, and in the poem only under the ambiguous term "Lover".
I'm semi-neglecting the other 6/7ths of the poem right now. But can words even describe how incredibly better a Lucy that parallels the divine is than a Lucy that parallels a English Romantic wench?
Trees and Loves
December 02, 2008 | |
I've been negligent in my commitment to mention a few things I will miss about my high school on a more regular basis. I just wrote a college essay about how awesome my high school was, so I'm well prepared to submit two today:
I will miss attending a school that puts up, count 'em, 4 (big, full, tall) Christmas trees with lights and all. And there is none of this "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" or "Festive (insert religious/belief/thought neutral statement here)" but it's "MERRY CHRISTMAS!".
I will also miss attending the high school that has the best religion classes ever. Actually that a high school even has religion as a (real) class is pretty cool in my book. Today's religion class at Providence Academy was especially cool. First we discussed the liberal arts, and in an almost telepathic fashion my teacher gave me the perfect apology for my favorite liberal arts college, Thomas Aquinas College. I was using, "learning about the created world brings us closer to God, and so any study of that, whether in math, literature, music or any other pursuit, is worthwhile and noble" but I like his "the liberal arts allow you to and actually think" better. Much more direct.
And then we got into talking about real friendship. The class's vihament opinion that evil people can have friends, and that beliefs have nothing to do with friendship held up the whole thing. I contend that Stalin had no friends ( he killed whatever you could call a friend) and the devout Nazi and Jew were never friends.
But it caused this great need in me to spend too much time rereading C.S. Lewis' The 4 Loves and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Bks. 8 and 9). I have been slowly finding time for Lewis over the past 3 weeks, and I was actually just nearing the chapter on Friendship. And I had read The Ethics during a particularly gruesome part of philosophy class, so it was done pretty shabbily. I took my time and found a lot that I missed! Oh if only I could do homework to actually learn.
And in addition to finding stuff I missed, I actually knew what it was all talking about! It was such an awesome feeling. I could puke it out on a test last year, but now I actually know what it's all saying. I could have wrote out "Eros thinks that a woman being herself is infinitely more important than that she is a woman" a year ago, but re-reading it today I know that it's true.
And that is why half of me wishes I could go to Providence Academy for another 4 years. And the other half of me wishes I could skip the next 10 years of life.