Holiday Rain

This is a photo from a potted plant on our our front steps. I took it while it was raining. I like the way it makes the leaves glisten in the light.

Relics

I came to a sudden realization as I was reading the Gospel of Luke the other day. Christ really lived and walked on this earth two thousand years ago. Now, I did not suddenly become a christian several days ago. I truly believed before this time that the Deus homo lived and walked on the earth, was crucified and resurrected on the third day. I simply had not thought of it in quantifiable terms. After reading nearly exclusively ancient history for a term, two thousand years does not seem so long.

The thought just struck me-

Christ did not burst into an alternate reality. He did not descend on a distant planet which was purer than our own. He walked on the good firma terra, and died on the cursed tree.

Relics begin to make sense to me. I can understand how, if someone believed that he is in the presence of a cloth that touched God he might get just a bit excited.

But why isn't every rock a relic; every grain of sand, and every leaf revered because it is God's handiwork? Why not frame every rainbow, or write poems praising every sunset? Such would be the response of a consistent relicist. But thankfully we are incapable of being consistent relicists, and this for the same reason we are incapable of being consistent God worshippers. But we are not called to praise every sunset. We are called to let every breath praise the LORD. So let's get started.

Praise the LORD!

When (God willing) I have a daughter . . .

I will do my best to sing this to her; because it kicks "Butterfly Kisses" in its proverbially cliched hindquarters. It is "Father and Daughter" by Paul Simon.

I believe the light that shines on you
Will shine on you forever
And though I can't guarantee
There's nothing scary hiding under your bed
I’m gonna stand guard
Like a postcard of a Golden Retriever
And never leave till I leave you
With a sweet dream in your head

I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you'll always know
As long as one and one is two
There could never be a father
Who loved his daughter more than I love you

Go out and listen to "Father and Daughter". Or anything else by him (you have my permission). This blog is not sponsored by Paul Simon (or U2).

Finals

Finals. . . aren't. If NSA has taught me one thing, it is that work is never done. Work is cyclical. I'm finished with that history paper, but I will be writing another history paper shortly. Then, I might be done with writing history papers (hopefully this sad state will never happen), but I will be writing more papers and taking more tests. Also, let it be known, I plan to teach a bit after college. What does this mean? I'll be assigning and grading papers. Where does it end? Not in academia.

The lawn does not stay mowed, the leaves don't stay off the lawn, and the dishes certainly don't stay clean. C.S. Lewis aptly described the sequence of life (in I think "Surprised by Joy"). Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die.

I can only think of two times in all of history when an act was justly declared completed; unique and never to be repeated. One was at the very beginning of history, one was right in the middle.

"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made" Genesis 2:2 (KJV)

"When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." John 19:30 (KJV)

There it is. That is finality.

Practical Jokes

I have made a rather stunning discovery, which I would like to share. Someone showed me how holding down the shift key on a mac will make everything slow down. So what you can do is hold down the shift key and hit an expose button over and over. Then close down the computer and later you'll have to wait until the windows stop bouncing at their extra slow pace. He said you can do that to other people and it's a lot of fun. I am too lazy to attempt it on other people, I did it to myself. Then I had to e-mail something and was really mad at myself for doing that earlier.

As I was watching the windows bob up and down rhythmically I thought to myself: self, I was just the victim of a retroactive auto-practical joke. I could do this sort of thing all the time. Right before I drift off to sleep I could tie my legs together. If all goes according to plan (fall asleep within five minutes of the event), the memory of tying my legs would never make it past the very-very short-term memory phase. I would wake up the next morning with no idea of what I'd done the night before. What a pleasant way to start the day.

When you think about it, it isn't fair at all. You see, what makes a practical joke sort of alright is its tit-for-tat nature. If you play one, then you are asking for it. Not so if you play one on yourself. A self inflicted practical joke will always be past-self playing a trick on future-self. The future never gets its own back.

And this is the case with everything, not just practical jokes. Take politics. Clinton left behind a load of troubles for Bush, who left an even bigger mess for Obama to make worse. Leaving politics (I hate politics), just look at life in general. We are always doing things to ourselves now which we will regret later. What's a tattoo but a nasty trick a twenty year old is playing on a fifty year old? You can laugh at your past self but you can never give it a good talking to. Hm, I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere.

Our "Where you people at"-map no longer looks like it has a nasty case of the chicken pox. Although I am happy that it's feeling better, I am a little sad that you can no longer see the various locations of our visitors on its diseased skin. It just shows a measly eight visits in the United States. Oh well. At least now we can see better where new blotches are going.

Also, you may have noticed that our hit counter is down. I know many of you are distraught right now with thoughts of all the hypothetical donuts you will miss out on (we were getting close to 7000 hits). It was about this time last year that Kaleb decided to not give out Krispy Kreme donuts on a monumentous hit count landmark. Alas, we are going to have to cancel that tradition.