Unlike France and Italy, England is not really known for its cuisine. If anyone talks about it at all, it is in negative terms. I've been in England for close to three weeks now, and I thought I'd give my impressions of the food here, as well as advice for anyone who ends up coming here. I'll try to be brief.

The bad reputation English food gets is somewhat deserved. There is not a very strong culinary culture here, and most pubs will have only a handful of dishes to choose from (mostly sausages, potatoes, and various pies). If you go to England for the food, you're an idiot. Wine aficionados might be justified traveling to Burgundy or Tuscany, but no one has ever gone to Yorkshire to check out all the various methods of mashing potatoes.

With that in mind, if you are going to England, do eat the food! Go to pubs and get traditional English dishes. In any of the big cities, you will see plenty of American, Italian, and French restaurants, and one might easily avoid eating any real English food at all. This is a mistake. For one thing, most any place that serves food in England will color all its food with a distinctly English flavor. Mayonnaise and cheeses, less flavor and, if you're in London, higher prices. It's possible to get food sans Englishness, but it limits your choices a great deal.

For another thing, the food here is actually pretty good. It will be easiest if I just list some bright spots:

- Breakfast. If you like eggs, rolls, and sausages, then traditional breakfasts here are hard to beat. There isn't a lot of variety, but you shouldn't really want it.

- Breads. Plenty of places do bread better than England, but that doesn't mean England is bad at it. I love bread very much, and being here has only bolstered my affection for wheat and flour. There is bread everywhere, and you should eat it as often as possible.

- Desserts. Since coming here, I've actually found that all the ice cream I've had has been wonderful. Besides that, the English do a lot of good things with pastries and honey and jam and syrup and all that good stuff. It's worth the extra course.

- Sausage. The English make great sausage. Bangers n' mash is actually one of the best meals I've ever had. It's so simple, and so beautiful.

- Street vendors. It's a city thing, but I've seen it a lot more over here. Almost all of them make great food for cheap. It's not unique to England, but, in my opinion, the street chefs here have proven themselves just as worthy as anyone else.

- Sandwiches. This goes with bread, but the sandwich shops are everywhere, and most of them make a pretty good little meal. It's also the fastest meal you can get here.

All this to say, English cuisine may not be the best, but it isn't the worst either. There's nothing to be afraid of.

I re-read John Updike's September 11 reflection today, and was reminded both of that day and of how incredible John Updike could be. An excerpt:

The nightmare is still on. The bodies are beneath the rubble, the last-minute cell-phone calls—remarkably calm and loving, many of them—are still being reported, the sound of an airplane overhead still bears an unfamiliar menace, the thought of boarding an airplane with our old blasé blitheness keeps receding into the past. Determined men who have transposed their own lives to a martyr's afterlife can still inflict an amount of destruction that defies belief. War is conducted with a fury that requires abstraction—that turns a planeful of peaceful passengers, children included, into a missile the faceless enemy deserves. The other side has the abstractions; we have only the mundane duties of survivors—to pick up the pieces, to bury the dead, to take more precautions, to go on living.

American freedom of motion, one of our prides, has taken a hit. Can we afford the openness that lets future kamikaze pilots, say, enroll in Florida flying schools? A Florida neighbor of one of the suspects remembers him saying he didn't like the United States: "He said it was too lax. He said, 'I can go anywhere I want to, and they can't stop me.' " It is a weird complaint, a begging perhaps to be stopped. Weird, too, the silence of the heavens these days, as flying has ceased across America. But fly again we must; risk is a price of freedom, and walking around Brooklyn Heights that afternoon, as ash drifted in the air and cars were few and open-air lunches continued as usual on Montague Street, renewed the impression that, with all its failings, this is a country worth fighting for. Freedom, reflected in the street's diversity and daily ease, felt palpable. It is mankind's elixir, even if a few turn it to poison.

The next morning, I went back to the open vantage from which we had watched the tower so dreadfully slip from sight. The fresh sun shone on the eastward façades, a few boats tentatively moved in the river, the ruins were still sending out smoke, but New York looked glorious.

To me, this essay transcended simple patriotism or national pride. Updike captured something about humanity - the part I tend to believe reaches toward God, however blindly - that goes far beyond America. The struggle for good - for beauty - even in the midst of chaos and catastrophe is what makes life worth living.

I've been in Oxford for a little over a week now, and I am loving it. It's nice to actually settle in somewhere, and feel kind of local. Christ Church, and the whole string of Oxford campuses are stunning. I wish I could stay, and live in this town that sleeps often and well. I do miss the states, though. I miss my family and some friends. Oddly, I miss Baylor, though I'm nowhere near prepared to go back to it. My goal for the next 17 days is to enjoy this time. I don't know if or when I'll be able to come back, but I'm here now. I'd love to slow down.

Several people have asked me how the classes are. To answer: they're great. When the weather is right, we have been meeting in a private garden. The classes are low-key and discussion based. I've written a few short papers, but I haven't been overwhelmed by any of it.

We read Tolkien, and I was reminded, as I often am, of what an incredible man he must have been. Traveling by train across the English countryside, with its lush, rolling hills and sun yellow fields, I felt like I was looking at the Shire. Hearing passages from Return of the King read aloud reminded me of how lyrical Tolkien could be. His work needs to be read that way, surrounded by nature. That an Englishman, a veteran of the First World War, and a man who was, by all accounts, stoic and dignified in person could write so beautifully about friendship and love will never cease to astound me.

My new friend Alyssa and I found a dance club a few days ago, and we spent two long evenings dancing our cares away. Anyone who knows me at all knows how excited I am about dancing, so I won't bore you with that tangent here.

Sorry for the grapeshot style post, but I'm surprisingly tired for 2 in the afternoon. I'll post on English food later.

41 years ago today, man walked on the moon.

If you want to laugh, cry, and genuinely be moved, go read this book.

Note: The content in this book is pretty PG-13. It isn't gratuitous, but some are more equipped to deal with it than others.

My dad posted this story the other day on Thinklings.

Katie is a 21 year old young woman living in Uganda as the adopted mother of fourteen little girls. She runs a non-profit organization called Amazima that provides free education, school supplies, food, and medical care, as well as love, fellowship and shelter. You can read her blog here. She has been updating since she left for Uganda in 2007, and the archives are filled with stories, pictures, and reflections that are simultaneously humbling and inspiring, heartbreaking and brimming with joy.

Even if you are not a Christian - even if you don't believe in any sort of God - this story is amazing. It's not about Katie - though she is very impressive - but it's about love being given to those who have known nothing but death and poverty and sorrow.

I read through a great deal of her blog today, and I couldn't help but feel inadequate and spoiled. It's not guilt. I didn't choose where I was born, or the family I was born into. But I'm sitting in a dorm at the most prestigious university in the world, getting a wonderful education, and I haven't really done anything to make the world a better place. I've argued about politics, books, music and history, but it's been so long since I did anything that was at all selfless.

It's not guilt. It's sobering.

I'm sitting in Oxford right now with a free afternoon, and I thought it was about time to make good on my promise to give occasional UK updates. So, here you go.

International flights are, as a rule, nightmarish, and the trip from Dallas to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Dublin wasn't much different. Lots of delays, holding patterns, alternate routes, screaming babies, turbulence, sleep deprivation... you get it. But we arrived safely, with all our baggage, and in relatively good spirits.

Dublin was absolutely wonderful. I don't like cities generally. I don't like tall buildings, crowds, or traffic, and am perfectly content to do without the unique urban culture that goes with pretty much any metroplex you visit. But I really enjoyed Dublin, and I hate that I only had three days there.

What struck me the most about Dublin was the preservation of the culture. The entire city was seemingly built around commemorating the Easter Rebellion in 1916 and the subsequent achievement of independence. The outward reverence the Irish have for their revolutionaries, their saints, their writers, and their artists is astounding to me. Virtually every street contained a statue of an Irish hero. How much of this is in the consciousness of an average Dubliner, I can't say, but at least externally, the city was draped in quiet gratitude.

Most of our time in Dublin was spent doing whatever we wanted. I probably walked the length of Dublin three or four times (it really isn't that big). At night, groups would go to pubs or shops, or just simply wander the streets looking for something to do. And there was always something to do. I'll list off a the highlights:

- We saw Riverdance, which was making the final stop on its 25 year world tour. I never saw the show anywhere else, so it's hard to tell, but I got the feeling that the Dublin shows were really special, to both the audience and the performers. The Celtic music and step dancing are, as far as I know, uniquely Irish, and there was a sense of pride covering the whole show. The performers and the audience had a lot of fun with each other. Someone in the audience would give a yelp during a dance, and one of the performers would yawp back. On the occasional number where the musicians would take center stage, they would stamp their feet until the audience began to clap along. It was playful and beautiful, and I had a blast. I loved the music, of course, but more than that I just had fun. I had fun watching the performers have fun and watching the people next to me have fun. I'm sad that I'll never get to see it again.

- One night, four of us went to see Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia. One of my friends here is a theater fanatic, and this happens to be her favorite play. It was fairly spontaneous. I decided to go about two hours before the show started. It was a truly fantastic play. I thought it was even better than Stoppard's early masterpiece Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Like that play, this one had a great sense of humor and also delves into some very interesting philosophical questions. It's about love and jealousy, obsession and genius, chaos and order, determinism and freedom. I was very taken in by all of it. Go see it, if you can, or get your hands on a copy and read it.

- I went to the Writer's Museum with my friend Brittany. They had a very thorough and interesting history of literature in Ireland, with an audio tour. I was especially delighted by the exhibits dedicated to Oscar Wilde, Yeats, James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Samuel Beckett. After we made our way through the museum, Brittany and I sat down and talked for a while, which is always a pleasure. After about an hour, we went our seperate ways, and I went to the James Joyce museum by myself, which was great. I love paying my respects to writers!

Sunday morning, we rode to the airport and flew to London. Once we arrived in London, we took a bus to Imperial College and got set up in the dorms there. I wasn't too crazy about London. It's so big and so crowded, and so stressful to try and get around. Everything we did was interesting, but it was just too much.

On the other hand, there were some bright spots:

- Seeing Henry IV: Part I at the Globe. I didn't know anything about Henry IV other than it's Shakespeare and that it is considered one of his best histories by Shakespeare fanatics. It was a brilliant performance. It was amazing how well-preserved the Globe is. Much of it has been redone, and I doubt there is much original left, but the performance itself was very faithful to the way Shakespeare's plays were originally performed. Other than electric lighting, there was no technology aiding the performance. The seats were crude wooden benches (though I purchased a cushion for a pound). The play had an opening act - an absurdly filthy little scene done by actors in wild masks. Scene changes were done by actors in the open and often covered by an actor singing a short song. At times, the play was bawdy and lewd, and the actors reveled in it, knowing that those lines would get the most enthusiastic responses from the crowd. There was a great deal of interplay between the audience and the performers, as there would have been in Elizabethan England. One thing that's interesting about the Globe, and about Shakespeare is how they were meant for the more common elements of London. Shakespeare certainly had a following with the nobility, but he wasn't a snob. In his time, Shakespeare was something of a populist, and that spirit is preserved to this day.

Anyways, the play itself was wonderful. Very, very funny, which I wasn't expecting. If I had to pick one thing to do in London, I would go see a Shakespeare play at the Globe.

- Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey was the place I wanted most to see in London. It didn't disappoint. I love how the English truly venerate their poets. The fact that authors' memorials and graves are in the same place as kings and queens is astounding to me, and it's as it should be. We don't do that in America. I mean, can you imagine Robert Frost having a memorial in the Washington Mall? The closest we get to the kind of noble respect we generally reserve for Presidents may be with old baseball players (I'm thinking Ruth, Dimaggio, Gehrig) and a select few musicians (Elvis and Dylan come to mind). Maybe it hasn't been long enough. For some reason, though, England loves its poets in a way America never will.

- Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral. St. Paul's is a work of art. It may be the single greatest feat of architecture I've ever seen. I attended a short evening service there. It was a beautiful service.

- Leicester Square. This was maybe the only place in London where I felt the city was alive. It was the only place where I felt like I was in London. I went there at night with a few friends. It was vibrant and loud and very bright, and I was enthralled. Go there, if you can.

- The Prince Albert Monument. It's a beautiful monument right outside the Royal Albert Hall. In addition to being a memorial to Victoria's beloved husband, it is a statement of purpose for the British Empire. It's large and gaudy, but at the same time pristine. Absolutely fascinating.

After five days in London, we finally drove to Oxford. The University is beautiful, of course. The town is wonderful. I can't get enough of this place. I will blog about Oxford more later. I'm trying to let it sink in.

Anyways, feel free to ask me any questions in the comments!

NY Magazine has a very interesting, very thorough profile of David Brooks. An excerpt:

"Every column is a failure,” says Brooks. “I always wish I did something different.” Part of the problem is the format. There’s only so much you can do with 800 words. “I’m a 3,000-word person,” he says.

Deadline days end with fourteen piles of paper stacked around his office—printouts, notes, index cards, photocopies—one for each paragraph of the story. If the column doesn’t come together, he resorts to the laundry list, beginning each paragraph with “First,” “Second,” etc. “Usually when I do that, I’ve written another version of the column and it sucked,” he says, “so those are usually acts of sheer desperation.”

Plus Brooks just isn’t that opinionated. “I look at Andrew Sullivan or Jonathan Chait, churning out opinions,” he says. “I don’t have that many.” Brooks’s goal isn’t to change minds, he says. “Do I expect someone with View X on a policy, and I argue View Anti-X, that somehow they’re gonna totally change their mind? I don’t think I’ve ever had that effect on anybody.” He can “strengthen and highlight certain feelings,” he says. But that’s about it.

I'm one of those nutty conservatives who not only still likes David Brooks, but also thinks he's one of the best conservative minds around. The profile is worth the read.

In about 36 hours, I'll be walking the streets of Dublin. I'll be fully internet capable while there, so I plan on blogging some.

For now, pray that I don't die of anxiety.

The Gospels contain a fairy- story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self- contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.

It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be “primarily” true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the “turn” in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is preeminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous.
But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.

But in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the “happy ending.” The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.

- J.R.R. Tolkien

Like the fans of anything I don't really understand, soccer fans can be very annoying. When the World Cup rolls around, soccer fans become nearly insufferable. It isn't the enthusiasm for their chosen team (by the way, if you're an American, and you rooted for England last weekend, you're a jerk). It isn't the hullabaloo and buzz, or the 24 hour coverage. What makes soccer fans positively unbearable this time of year is the daily insistence that soccer is, without a doubt, the greatest sport in the universe. Arguments over sports are almost always useless, but nothing is more futile than trying to convince a true believer that soccer might not be THE greatest achievement in human history. Besides not listening, the soccer fan will often go on to defame all other sports, and will usually take a few pot shots United States (the only country that doesn't seem to "get" soccer).

I won't argue that soccer is a stupid sport. I have trouble understanding how a 90-minute game that frequently ends in scores of 1-0 or 2-1 (or a TIE?!?!?!?) can be all that exciting, but I've watched my little brother long enough to recognize some of soccer's nuances, and I think I have cultivated a modest appreciation of the sport. So, this post isn't about how soccer is horrible, or how it isn't a great sport. This post is simply a blanket response to a few of the most common arguments used by soccer-is-the-best-sport types. If anyone is offended, the problem is most likely yours.

Argument #1: Soccer is THE Global Sport

It's the same argument baseball fans use when they say "Baseball is the American pastime" (something, by the way, that isn't true anymore), just on a larger scale. Besides being an informal fallacy, the argument doesn't carry much weight with me because I have a generally low opinion of humanity. It wasn't so long ago when public executions, Gladiatorial games, and mass ritual slaughter were favorite pastimes all over the world. Nobody today would argue that watching slaves fight to the death in a piping hot stadium of bloodthirsty Romans was a particularly fine moment in human history, let alone that Gladiatorial games were the best sport of the classical era.

"Most popular" does not necessarily equal "best." Apply that line of thinking elsewhere and Back in Black is the second best album of all time.

Argument #2: Soccer Takes More Skill Than Other Sports

This argument is absolutely unprovable, but it's true that soccer players are highly skilled. It's truly amazing to watch. I'm impressed by my little brother, and he's 12. But even supposing they are right, and soccer really does require more skill than any of the major team sports, it doesn't follow that I should appreciate a midfielder more than, say, a defensive tackle. Who watches decathlons for fun? Are the qualifying heats in Olympic speed skating more exciting than the college football National Championship or the NBA Finals?

Argument #3: Soccer is Constant Action

This argument doesn't carry much weight with American audiences, because all of our major sports have a lot of stops. A baseball game can go on for 4 hours and have maybe 20 minutes of real action. A soccer game is 90+ minutes, and almost all of it is constant motion. The stops are quick, relatively infrequent, and don't leave enough time for commercial breaks. The problem, though, is that so much of the "action" is spent in places where scoring is virtually impossible. In football and baseball, every single play has a realistic possibility of ending in points. The fact that a game can go on for 93 minutes of constant motion and still end in a 0-0 tie is absolutely baffling to anyone who has ever watched a Basketball game.

Argument #4: Soccer is a True Team Sport

This is true, and I would actually argue that soccer is probably the most team-oriented of all the major sports. Baseball is probably the least-team oriented, as the Yankees basically buy World Series rings year after year. In one sense, it's very attractive. Soccer has its stars, but the emphasis is on the club. It isn't a sport driven by statistics. People in America were really puzzled when they learned that David Beckham isn't really a scorer. He was, for a few years, one of the most popular athletes in the world, and yet he didn't put up huge numbers.

Americans like dominance. Good teams excite us, too, but our legendary performances are ones in which individuals have performed amazing feats with their backs against the wall. We like names, we like numbers. Maybe to a fault, but I don't think there's ground to say either side is necessarily wrong or right.

Argument #5: Soccer Brings People Together

So did Jim Jones.

Even with these feelings, I'll still be paying attention to the World Cup from afar with moderate interest.

A compilation of last movie scenes:



Reminds me of why I love art. Sometimes it takes a story to remind us of the good in the world, and why it's worth fighting for.

A primer:

A fun little game. Try and stabilize the U.S. debt by 2018. The goal isn't to eliminate the debt, just to get it down to 60% of GDP in 8 years. I was able to get it down to 56% of GDP. Play, if you dare.

I really love this lady.

I removed my last post, because I couldn't figure out a way to get the link working, and was too lazy to figure it out. I'll work on it soon.

Along the same lines, though, was this post by Damon Linker of The New Republic. In it, he criticizes a certain batch of atheists for making the implicit claim that atheism necessarily equals the best possible life:

The statements “godlessness is true” and “godlessness is good” are distinct propositions. And yet the new atheists invariably conflate them. But a different kind of atheism is possible, legitimate, and (some would say) more admirable. Let’s call it catastrophic atheism, in tribute to its first and greatest champion, Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote in a head-spinning passage of the Genealogy of Morals that “unconditional, honest atheism is ... the awe-inspiring catastrophe of two-thousand years of training in truthfulness that finally forbids itself the lie involved in belief in God.” For the catastrophic atheist, godlessness is both true and terrible.

...

Take the example of physicist Steven Weinberg. In his 1977 book about the earliest origins of the universe (The First Three Minutes), Weinberg stated in passing that “the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.” When some of his fellow cosmologists objected to the choice of words, accusing him of expressing, if only implicitly, some form of theological nostalgia for a non-scientific view of the world, Weinberg admitted that he is indeed nostalgic—“nostalgic for a world in which the heavens declared the glory of God.” Associating himself with the nineteenth-century poet Matthew Arnold, who likened the retreat of religious faith in the face of scientific progress to the ebbing ocean tide and claimed to detect a “note of sadness” in its “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,” Weinberg confessed to his own sorrow in doubting that scientists will find “in the laws of nature a plan prepared by a concerned creator in which human beings played some special role.” When it comes to God, what Weinberg believes to be true and what he wishes to be true simply do not coincide.

Nietzsche and Weinberg are hardly the only catastrophic atheists. Poet Philip Larkin thoroughly rejected belief in God while also recognizing that a life lived in the glaring light of “the sure extinction that we travel to” could be nearly unbearable at times. Playwright Eugene O’Neill seems to have thought that a life stripped of all illusions, including theological illusions, would be intolerable, plunging us into despair and madness. And then there is the rather extreme case of Woody Allen.

The point is not that atheism must invariably terminate in a tragic view of the world; another atheistic hero, David Hume, seems to have thought that it was perfectly possible to live a happy and decent life as a non-believer. Yet the new atheists seem steadfastly opposed even to entertaining the possibility that there might be any trade-offs involved in breaking from a theistic view of the world. Rather than explore the complex and daunting existential challenges involved in attempting to live a life without God, the new atheists rudely insist, usually without argument, that atheism is a glorious, unambiguous benefit to mankind both individually and collectively. There are no disappointments recorded in the pages of their books, no struggles or sense of loss. Are they absent because the authors inhabit an altogether different spiritual world than the catastrophic atheists? Or have they made a strategic choice to downplay the difficulties of godlessness on the perhaps reasonable assumption that in a country hungry for spiritual uplift the only atheism likely to make inroads is one that promises to provide just as much fulfillment as religion? Either way, the studied insouciance of the new atheists can come to seem almost comically superficial and unserious.

Read the rest if you're interested.

A short passage from Housekeeping, which is easily one of the best books of the last half century. Penned by the incomparable Marilynne Robinson, who is, in my opinion, the best author still writing:

Cain murdered Abel, and blood cried out from the earth; the house fell on Job's children, and a voice was induced or provoked into speaking from a whirlwind; and Rachel mourned for her children; and King David for Absalom. The force behind the movement of time is mourning that will not be comforted. That is why the first event is known to have been an expulsion, and the last is hoped to be a reconciliation and return. So memory pulls us forward, so prophecy is only brilliant memory - there will be a garden where all of us as one child will sleep in our mother Eve, hooped in her ribs and staved by her spine.

Cain killed Abel, and the blood cried out from the ground - a story so sad that even God took notice of it. Maybe it was not the sadness of the story, since worse things have happened every minute since that day, but its novelty that He found striking... Cain, the image of God, gave the simple earth of the field a voice and a sorrow, and God Himself heard the voice, and grieved for the sorrow, so Cain was a creator in the image of his Creator. God troubled the waters where He saw His face, and Cain became his children and their children and theirs, through a thousand generations, and all of them transients, and wherever they went everyone remembered that there had been a second creation, and the earth ran with blood and sang with sorrow. And let God purge this wicked sadness away with a flood, and let the waters recede to pools and ponds and ditches, and let every one of them mirror heaven. Still, they taste a bit of blood and hair. One cannot cup one's hand and drink from the rim of any lake without remembering that mothers have drowned in it, lifting their children toward the air, though they must have known as they did soon enough the deluge would take all the children, too, even if their arms could have held them up. Presumably only incapacity made infants and the very old seem relatively harmless. Well, all that was purged away, and nothing is left of it after so many years but a certain pungency and savor in the water, and in the breath of creeks and lakes, which, however sad and wild, are clearly human.

...

There is remembrance, and communion, altogether human and unhallowed. For families will not be broken. Curse and expel them, send their children wandering, drown them in floods and fires, and old women will make songs out of all these sorrows and sit in the porches and sing them on mild evenings. Every sorrow suggests a thousand songs, and every song recalls a thousand sorrows, and so they are infinite in number, and all the same.

Memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after it. God Himself was pulled after us into the vortex we made when we fell, or so the story goes. And while He was on earth He mended families. He gave Lazarus back to his mother, and to the centurion he gave his daughter again. He even restored the severed ear of the soldier who came to arrest Him - a fact that allows us to hope the resurrection will reflect a considerable attention to detail. Yet this was no more than tinkering. Being man He felt the pull of death, and being God He must have wondered more than we do what it would be like. He is known to have walked upon water, but He was not born to drown. And when He did die it was sad - such a young man, so full of promise, and His mother wept and His friends could not believe the loss, and the story spread everywhere and the mourning would not be comforted, until He was so sharply lacked and powerfully remembered that His friends felt Him beside them as they walked along the road, and saw someone cooking fish on the shore and knew it to be Him, and sat down to supper with Him, all wounded as He was. There is so little to remember of anyone - an anecdote, a conversation at a table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke out hair with dreaming, habitual fondness, not having meant to keep us waiting long.

I really love this song and this performance. If you don't watch the whole thing, at least do yourself a favor and tune to the 1:30 mark. This is worship, plain and simple.

- It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. That's due to the fact that I'm actually kind of busy these days, and also to having no real motivation to post anything.

- This post is on nothing in particular. Consider it a random gathering of thoughts that don't deserve individual posts.

- There has been so much death lately. Maybe I'm just more aware of it, but these last few months, it seems that every week, somebody I'm connected to in some way has died. Nobody close has passed, and I haven't attended a single funeral. Still, I keep experiencing these dull little pangs. Earlier this week, I got the news that a friend from High School was killed in a car crash. He was on drugs, and hit a steel pole at 130 miles per hour. The car just about split in half. I wasn't close to this guy, but Senior year, I had two classes with him, and I considered him a friend. He was one of two people I talked to in my creative writing class. He was very funny, generally cheery, and just a really nice guy. I hadn't seen him since the day we graduated, but he was the subject of several stories I liked to tell.

I'm not troubled by his death any more than would be expected, but it's just weird. People aren't supposed to die at twenty.

- Last week - I think it was last week - I finished Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men. I feel comfortable saying it was one of the best books I've ever read. It's a political novel that isn't really about politics, and one of the few real American epics. Captivating story, superb prose, and an incredibly deep protagonist. It's worthy of every mushy word I could muster. Go read it.

- At the moment, politics is one of the least interesting pursuits I know.

- I've been meaning to clear up my blogroll. There are sites I need to add, and plenty I should remove. I think about it every time I get on here (which, even when I'm not posting, ends up being several times a day), but just haven't gotten around to it. Sorry.

- Today (April 22) is Dia del oso - the "Day of the Bear." Once a year, Baylor picks a Thursday in the late spring and cancels classes. It's a very eventful day. I have work, but I'm sure it will be fun for every one else.

- April 22 also marks the 95th anniversary of the first successful large-scale employment of chemical warfare. It happened at the Second Battle of Ypres on the field of Gravenstafel.

- If I had my way, I'd begin work on my thesis right now and finish it by Christmas, but there's a lot more to be done. Three semesters isn't a long time, but it doesn't feel like a short time either.

- Some days I look forward to grad school, and others I dread it. I worry that I've already peaked. I think maybe I was just a precocious, somewhat odd teenager who learned what anybody else could have if they had made the time and maxed out early. It's a strange fear, but a real one. Every semester I've convinced myself that I don't really have the talent I need to rise above mediocrity, and every semester I've had a regeneration. I still end up back here, though. It sounds vain, but school is only bearable to me if I believe I am gifted in certain areas. I can't take being average in these areas. I love writing, but am I actually a good writer? I love books more than almost anything, but do I read as well as I need to in order to succeed? Am I thorough enough?

I need to learn to relax about all that, I suppose.

- Another somewhat irrational, but real fear I have is the fear that I'll miss out on love because of school. With three semesters left in Waco, I wonder if I'll get out of here without going on a single date. That's not what scares me, really. I mean, finding someone would be nice, but I could live without if it's not in the cards right now.

What really scares me is the idea that I could meet someone and even fall in love with them and then lose them because life carries us different ways after graduation. It's stupid to worry about things that haven't happened yet and might never happen, but it keeps me up at night sometimes. I don't know why.

- This semester is coming to a merciful end. I have a few papers left and, of course, finals, but I'm basically done.

- I'm ready to go to Oxford.

- Even though money hasn't really been a problem for me the last few years, I worry constantly about being unemployed. I hate searching for jobs, and I hate interviews. I don't like being dependent on my parents for trivial expenses (gas, food, miscellaneous fun-spending, etc.), and I haven't been for almost 3 years now, but I get so uptight thinking about not being able to take responsibility for myself.

- I worry too much.

- Here's something happy:



- Goodnight.