halloween

When i was living in England I never really bothered with Halloween. I thought the Brits made a poor attempt to imitate the extravagance of the American forms of festivity. But now I'm in New York, it seems inconceivable to abstain. Sure, out in the suburbs it's mostly young children wandering around the streets trick-or-treating; but here in the city, Halloween is just an excuse for all the college kids to have outrageous fancy dress parties. So, Preston is going as Aladin, Nate is going Amish, and I'm going Redneck. I'm sporting a moustache, sunglasses, a gas-station shirt, and a trucker hat that says "Im a redneck and proud of it" just in case people can't tell what I am. If only I could find a McCain/Palin badge to finish the look...

only in new york

Early in the semester, when we still had time and money to spend long evenings cavorting around at our favourite roof-top eaterie, The Heights Bar and Grill, my two close friends - Nate and Preston - and I began to discuss the name and nature of a 'New York Moment'. We routinely repeat this glib phrase whenever we think that at that moment, the thing we are experiencing could only happen in New York. Now obviously, never say never, and never say 'only' - but you get the idea. Anyway, here are three New York moments I had this week, in chronological order.


First, I went to a restaurant on Friday that often has a jazz quartet playing in the corner. When I got back, a friend told me that Wynton Marsalis played there the previous week! On the walk home, we noticed a guy standing at the entrance to a side street and speaking into a walkie talkie. The huge spotlights gave the game away - he was part of the film crew filming a new tv pilot. We got to talking and it turns out he worked on the set of Flight of the Conchords. We chatted, swapped character anecdotes about Jermaine, made inside 'FOTC' jokes (as they call it in the business) and lamented the fact that they will only do two seasons. Then he walked us through the small set.

Secondly, the church I go to meets in a theatre auditorium in the business end of the city - near Columbus Circle for those in the know. It is part of a building shared by a very fancy hotel, and on Sunday a 35 yr old client of the hotel wandered down to the theatre to see what was happening. After the meeting we both happened to be leaving at the same time, and got to talking as we left the building. He was staying in the swish digs on a visit from Hong Kong where he is a banker. We briefly talked about the service, and agreed to continue the conversation over lunch, where we talked about the relation of Christianity and Buddhism, our life goals, and green tea. So, I had lunch with a Chinese banker who gave me his email address so I can let him know what I'm up to. Mum and Dad will be proud that I paid the bill.

Finally, tonight, while walking back from the Butler Library, I heard a rumbling in the trash can as I passed. I stopped, looked in, and saw what appeared to be a squirrel that had become trapped inside, leaping up continually trying to escape. Nate and I laughed for a while, then stoped laughing when we realised it was a giant rat.

house keeping

after two months, is it time to change the bed sheets?




new and clean, or old and worn, i love sleeping on my books in the hope that the information will somehow transfer to my mind by osmosis. results not yet in.

sola fidei

One of my classes is Theology, Ethics & Spirituality. We have been reading chronologically through church history, starting with the desert Fathers and reaching Bonhoeffer this week. Each week we write a dense, one-page paper (300 words) summarising one feature of the particular author's spirituality. Here is an excerpt from my paper on Luther. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it here it is, unedited.

"I suggest that a common problem between Luther’s day and ours is the temptation toward self-making. In Luther’s age of monarchical power, self-making took the shape of conforming oneself to authority – the abbot or pope commanded and one obeyed, and this obedience accrued merit as congruity or condignity. In our time, the corollary of democratic, capitalist society is consumer spirituality. Today, the temptation of self-making is evident in the way we construct our self-identities through the products we buy, the jobs we perform, the books we read etc. We are then also tempted toward self-healing (or salvation) through the relationships we enter, and the philosophical outlook we take, and the causes we take up. Luther’s reminder would be that “no external thing has any influence in producing Christian righteousness.” Self-making leaves one none the wiser as to the outcome of one’s ultimate future. The only solution available is to take the risk that perhaps God’s promises in Christ may be true. This risk involves necessarily a denial that one’s project of self-making will be the final word for personal salvation – faith relativizes self-making."

fire the wedding planner

I'm pretty busy these days saving the world, fixing long-standing theological problems, and giving definitive interpretations of every biblical passage. By the time I'm finished here, they won't need seminaries anymore; just mail my essays out to everyone. Not quite.

I am rather busy though, which is why the posts are few and far between, but I've got a nice little selection from a paper I wrote on Luther two weeks back, and I'll put that up tomorrow.

For now, be content with this tremendous peach - a friend sent it to me so that I could enjoy a light-hearted study break. All I can say is fire the wedding planner. Good thing Jamie had his wedding indoors. Don't watch this holding and/or consuming a hot beverage.

a tribute to my father

I've been sporting this bad boy for about a week. People at school are talking, and people on the streeting are laughing and sometimes pointing. I'm glad I bring joy to their lives! The funny thing is I forget how I look, so when I catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window (accidently, of course) I have moment of shock, followed swiftly by admiration and then amusement.

a man's gotta do...

So I went to watch a movie tonight; 'Body of Lies' with Leonardo di Caprio and Russell Crowe. Pretty good film all around, and it had everything a guy could want: a nice (clean) love interest, and close-up shots of di Caprio having his fingers broken with a hammer... ok, maybe not the first one. The plot revolves around di Caprio, a CIA agent working in Irag initially, and then in Jordan, to spy and gather intelligence on a terrorist organisation. It's that genre of film designed to make you think this thought: while you're siting at a sidewalk cafe, sipping a latte and enjoyig the sunshine, someone out there is doing the dirty work to keep our country safe, so don't take the moral high ground and opine about how horrible the CIA is. I would tell you more, but then I'd be spoiling the film for those who will see it in about 3 months :-) I stepped out of the cinema, into the temple of Western consumerism - Times Square. Don't you just love juxstaposition??

the hard life

So this is the photo you've all been waiting for - me studying in Central Park. This was actually taken today, October 7th, and as you can see the sky is blue and the gentle sun's rays are warming me rather nicely. There have been a few days of drizzling rain, and recently some overcast days, but New York actually has a rather consistent and delightful slow descent into winter temperatures. As such, it's 14 degrees C today and I'm lounging in the sun, in flip-flops.



I'm writing this post from the Hungarian Pastry Shop, an Upper West Side landmark made famous by it's appearance in a Woody Allen film. It's full of people talking politics, speaking foreign languages, and finishing PhD theses. It's adored for its dim, slightly dirty, but inviting atmosphere - not to mention the free coffee refills :-) This is how I imagine 'Les Deux Magots' was before Sartre stopped going and American tourists took over.

I'm studying Thomas Aquinas and his theory of analogy. The basic problem is this: when one says a knife is good, or a judge is good, or a play is good, in what sense are they all 'good'? You will notice that good means something slightly different in each case, and so 'good' is almost impossible to define. What we can do is compare the different uses, and try to find a similar feature between the uses. Now, take for example the difference between God is good, and Mother Teresa is good. Whereas in the other examples the different senses of good can be compared, God's goodness is not available for examination because all mention of God's goodness is conveyed by human language, via what it means for a human to be good. But God's goodness must be so qualitively superior, that the human sense of goodness falls impossibly short. So how can we say that God is good, in any sense that is meaningful about God? This is the question that analogy tries to address. I proffer no answers.

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

If anyone has been following the news at all, you would be familiar with two prominent themes - the upcoming US election, and the financial crisis. It is intriguing to be in New York at this time, where people are very politically informed, and it's not at all unusual to hear discussions of politics on the subway or in cafes...usually carried on with much vigour and hand waving, and borderline shouting. It's also surreal to be right in the middle of the city at the centre of the worldwide markets. I was walking around downtown one day, saw a bunch of news vehicles parked up, and people milling around on the street. I looked up and it was the Lehman Brothers' building - the people were staff, emptying out, standing around chatting, since the bank has just declared bankruptcy. It was bizarre to think that I was there, standing right next to an institution that would be on the front page of most English speaking news papers, and perhaps a few foreign ones too, over the few days following. These are indeed interesting times in America, and right now, I love being here.