the road less travelled

last post... probably

2009-05-29T20:46:00.002Z

This will probably be my last post for a while. I'm not really doing much anything interesting, except enjoying the Liverpool summer. When I do return to blogging, I will drop an email to those who might be interested.

But til then, here is the reflection I wrote down as an imaginary response that I would give if they ask me at church to briefly tell people about my time in New York.

"It may very well be that many of you are interested in the sheer secular delights that New York offered and I was able to enjoy; and indeed they are many and varied. I was able to take in every form of entertainment, from Henry V off Broadway, to $5 improv nights, from free flute recitals at Manhattan School of Music, to local jazz cats at Cleopatra’s needle, to the most incredible rock I have ever witnessed, courtesy of the Smashing Pumpkins. I ventured often up into Harlem, ordering snacks and drinks and bantering with shopkeepers in Spanish, I spotted movie stars in Greenwich village, and walked past dejected –and recently unemployed- members of the Lehman Brothers’ law firm on the morning it crashed. All this and more, in the city of New York, the centre of the world.

Others of you will be directly interested in my studies, even if, after having explained it, some of it still remains stubbornly opaque. For you, I suggest we leave those discussions to another night, a night where we can warm some bread, pour a glass of wine, and recline on the sofa, allowing our bodies to rest complacent while our minds perform daring feats of intellectual gymnastics – and suffer the inevitable crashes and falls that accompany such an endeavour.

But most will want to know –have I changed? To which I reply that change per se isn’t desirable. But I know what you mean. You mean, why go all that way, and do all that study if it didn’t do anything for you, if it didn’t affect, benefit… change you somehow?

I will, to this question, reply in the positive –yes, I did learn ‘stuff’ and yes it did change me. But there are many ways in which learning can lead to change. For example, one may learn how to repair a flat tyre, and this new piece of knowledge brings about a change by making one into the kind of person that can repair tyres. This is not the kind of change I experienced.

I learnt many things this year. I read major theologians from the earliest patristic periods, through to medieval authors, to giants of the Reformation. I learnt the content of their thought, but I also learned how they came to their conclusions. Even more, by looking at the long line of development from one generation’s thought to another, I learnt how the history of Christian thinking progressed and what influenced each of the major writers. Studying that history parallels in some ways learning the history of a conflict between friends. Perhaps you once heard a story about a friend that put them in a bad light, and you thought ‘Gee, I didn’t realise so and so was like that’. But then perhaps months later you heard a further detail from someone else that put the original story in context, and made your friend’s action suddenly seem appropriate. In learning the history of a dispute, you might change – from being a person that jumps to a conclusion, to being a person who becomes more cautious, more thoughtful, more patient. And this is the kind of change I have undergone. In studying the history of Christian thought, in studying the details, and the contexts, and the reasons why people said what they did, I am now less likely to jump to a conclusion about them… or, about God they were trying thereby to explain…. And I’m now more likely to seek further information. I’m more likely to wait, to ponder, to…seek. For as the greatest theologians have always described it, the life of the Christian mind is one of fides quarens intellectum, faith seeking understanding. And where does one seek? Where else can one go, but to him who has the words of eternal life? Thus, the kind of seeking that theological study inspires is one which does its seeking in the place of prayer, at the feet of the one who left heaven and entered earth to be a light in the darkness."

political theology

2009-05-19T05:14:00.001Z

Firstly, I'm not sure what Rebs was talking about... I always make sense, don't I??

Secondly, here's the concluding paragraph from my essay explaining the political theology of Moltmann and Metz.

"There is then, its seems, a ‘trinitarian’ shape to praxis as it functions as a criterion of truth in a fundamental theology ordered to politics. Firstly, with respect to the Father as creator and source, praxis acknowledges the doctrine of the goodness of creation; it is so committed to the well-being of the created order, both natural and social, that the practical effectiveness of social arrangements takes on the role of a criterion – if this arrangement is damaging to creation and society, it cannot be from God because God is committed to the well-being of creation. Secondly, with respect to the Son and his redemptive role, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth functions to undermine the secular ‘closure’ of history to the genuinely novel, and rather orients our attention to the novum creatio that we expect from God, in hope. This hope is not stimulated by the disquiet of our hearts, but by the divine promises which call us from complacency and into action. Thus, praxis functions to critique our behaviour, and call into question whether our action witnesses to the truth of the resurrection of Jesus, which has broken all bounds and revealed “the mission and call of God, which demand impossibilities of man.” Thirdly, by looking at the life of Jesus, we note the work of the Spirit which gave him birth, empowered, and raised Jesus from the dead. This work of the Spirit removes the docetic appearance of inimitability from Jesus. Rather, the presence of the Spirit in the church, just as it was in Jesus, means that we are enlisted in the redemptive work that Christ has begun; in the carrying out of that work, our own salvation and theosis arrives. Finally, the shape of the trinitarian community of Father, Son, and Spirit demands that those who claim to be empowered by that trinitarian life reflect it in a praxis of community, of solidarity. Metz and Soelle advocate an ecclesiology that views the church as being instrumental in extending the ‘kingdom of God’. What generates the activity of the church is the gap between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’, between the change that the arrival of the kingdom has achieved, and what remains to be done. Soelle writes that “being a disciple of Jesus… is a response to the message that the kingdom of God has come near, and from the beginning it was made in society.” The tasks that remain to be accomplished are social tasks, and therefore the response is a social one. This is why, despite the wicked moments in the history of the church, institution per se should not be abandoned, for “institutions are again acquiring a whole new meaning… as the desired bearer of critically responsible action.” In conclusion then, from both the economic roles of the trinitarian persons, and the imminent communal life of the persons together, it can be seen how praxis, or action in the world, is a fundamental category for generating and explaining Christian truth in our time."

on the atonement

2009-05-16T18:56:00.001Z

Here's the concluding chapter to my Calvin paper. It was my last paper and I'm all finished... and it feels good!

"Let me here restate the aspects of Calvin’s thought covered so far. It was seen that it was from his abundant and free love that God created the world, and that it is the same love which maintains the world against its sin and death. That sin is ubiquitous, totally corrupting both the whole individual, and the whole number of human individuals ever, for which we are obliged to make restitution to God, and failing that, deserve punishment. Because of our corrupt nature we require a mediator, whom God has provided in the person of his Son, sent into the created order. He took on human flesh as Jesus of Nazareth, and in his death the weakness of flesh and the sin of humanity was killed with him. Further, the obedience by which he lived his life sufficed as satisfaction to the Father, such that the guilt of sin was actually expiated, and redemption was achieved. It was not merely the incarnation that actualised this redemption, but the work of the Spirit brings it about in the individual by imparting the gift of faith that joins the believer to Christ and enables them to partake of his benefits. In all this, nothing of the work is man’s but it is all God’s, and so the achieving of salvation is outside the will or action of humans. It being the decision of God, salvation is only for those whom God has elected to save, and impossible for those whom God has elected to death and punishment.
What then of the scope of the atonement? It is certainly clear that for Calvin, the work of “the Spirit, strictly speaking, seals forgiveness of sins in the elect alone.” This is because the Spirit only works within and according to the eternal decree of the Father, and thus regenerates only those elected to salvation. It is clear then that the decree of the Father, and the regenerating work of the Spirit, are solely for those elected to life. But what of the work of the Son? Is his work limited to only the elect? Several features of Calvin’s thought do point to the conclusion that Christ’s work was only done on behalf of the elect. Firstly, Calvin writes regarding Christ’s kingly office that he only “fulfils the combined duties of king and pastor for the godly who submit willingly and obediently.” If one makes the reasonable assumption that there cannot be a variety of scope between the work of the different offices, then one must say that the priestly office has the same scope as the kingly, which Calvin here says extends only to the godly who submit willingly. But by reference to ‘willingly’ Calvin may be making reference to the varied degrees of sanctification visible in God’s people, meaning that Christ’s lordship is seen as fulfilled in so far as individuals obey. There are other indicators regarding the work of salvation being exclusively on behalf of the elect, as when he writes that “God regenerates only the elect…[and] firmly seals the gift of his adoption in them.” The problem here is that regeneration and sealing are works of the Spirit, which we have already seen are works limited to the elect, as Calvin says here. The real question is whether the atonement that the Spirit is sealing was itself limited to the elect, or not. We come closer to the issue of atonement when Calvin says that “the Lord freely justifies his own” , justification being predicated on satisfaction, and here we have a hint that this extends only to ‘his own’. Further, Calvin writes that God truly carries out his work with regard to “his own people” in order that “the sway of sin is abolished in them.” This seems to be confirmed in one of his more succinct statements, that “we know, moreover, that he benefits only those whose ‘Head’ he is.” This is perhaps the closest Calvin comes to saying that the atonement is limited, in so far as he speaks of the limiting of Christ’s ‘benefits’ which includes atonement, rather than the limiting of regeneration or some such, which is the work of the Spirit. From this it seems that there is warrant within Calvin’s own writings to suspect that the atonement is limited to the elect, and one may draw some further conclusions from the ‘fit’ that the idea has within his system.
In particular, two other ideas seem to be the basic correlates that demand a limited atonement, those being, namely, the efficacy of his death, and the damnation of some. It can be represented in a syllogistic form as follows:
i) All are guilty
ii) Christ’s death effectively atones for sin
iii) Some are damned
iv) Some were not atoned for
From the conclusion that some are not atoned for, it seems reasonable to point out then, that Christ only atoned for the elect. The reply might be made that the reason some are damned is that God’s election and the Spirit’s application are selective, but that the atonement is universal, and therefore they are not saved because they lack the Spirit’s work of faith. However, it must be pointed out that for Calvin, the Spirit plays an important role that is doing two jobs. Firstly, it is ensuring that even the work of faith is not a form of human cooperation, but that every moment of salvation belongs to the work of God. Secondly and more importantly, it functions to qualify the apparently universalistic implications of a soteriology grounded only in the incarnation, of which Christ’s death is a part. If human nature per se is by Christ taken up into the divine life, then anyone who has a human nature participates in that life. This universalistic tendency is clearly in conflict with Calvin’s doctrine of the reprobation of some, and so he distinguishes the work of salvation done by the Son and that done by the Spirit, in order to qualify the extent of the benefits derived via incarnation, but without losing the efficacy of Christ’s death and atoning work. Furthermore, the logic of atonement here seems to require its limitation. If it is genuinely effective, and if satisfaction is truly made for sin, then how can the Father require any more from anyone? If Christ’s atoning work was universal, then the Father was universally appeased and there could be no wrath whatsoever left. But if God punishes anyone in hell, then God is unjust, for he has punished twice for the same sin: he punished Christ once for someone’s sin, and then punished the man himself. If that is the case, then Christ’s substitutionary work seems not at all to have absorbed God’s wrath, but this is just what Calvin cannot admit. And so it seems that in the theology of John Calvin, to hold to both the efficacy of Christ’s atoning death and the punishment of those elected to reprobation, requires that in strict coherence with the saving decree of God, Christ’s death was limited to only atoning for the elect."

my life

2009-05-07T03:12:00.002Z

See the post below for an excerpt from the paper I've been working on all week.

While all that has been going on, I’ve still found time for a few more ‘new york’ moments. I got to be in the crowd for a tv show called The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and they basically take news stories from the previous couple of days and re-present them in humorous ways…. And it’s seriously funny! They had this warm-up guy come out, and do a bit of a stand up routine, making fun of people in the crowd to get us laughing and loosen us up, so that when Jon came out we would laugh at his jokes and the laughter would be picked up by the audience microphones and make viewers think he’s really funny. The irony, was that the warm-up dude was actually way funnier than Jon Stewart…. go figure. The only drawback was that we had to wait in line for almost 2 hours, and then when we finally got in, it took 22 mins to record, and we were out again. There’s a strange feeling that comes over one, when you’ve paid this price of time and physical pain to stand and wait… and then it’s all over so quickly! I felt cheated indeed.

Then the other night I had a pretty cool moment. Anyone remember John and Tammy Faye Bakker? They were really big televangelists, and he got put in prison for money swindling, and she died of cancer. Well, anyway, their life was pretty tough and totally alienated their son Jay Bakker. But through it all he has scraped through and now leads a small church in Brooklyn that meets in a bar, and he came to Union the other night to speak, and his mate came along and led worship with some sweet blues piano and ‘dirty gospel’ songs. It was a really interesting night, hearing his story, and what he’s up to now. Very refreshing.

Well, that’s it from me.. I’m typing this up at my regular coffee shop, and I’ve just finished about 10 pages on one of my essays. Its 7pm so I’m gonna walk home for some fresh air, cook myself pasta for dinner, and then head back out to the library and finish some more reading!! Woohoo!

gregory of nyssa

2009-05-07T03:06:00.002Z

I've just handed in one of my major end of term papers. Here's the conclusion for your perusal.

"Supposing that the opponents in mind are the pneumatomachians, Gregory’s affirmation of the homoousia of the Spirit with the Father and Son had drawn the charge that his view entailed the opinion that there were ‘three gods’. In the fourth chapter, this paper explained Gregory’s first move against the charge, whereby he explains how according to the rules of grammar there could never be three ‘gods’ since natures are singular. But Gregory shows the truth of the point through a discussion of the error in saying there are three men, which is common habit. The effect of this however, is to trivialise his argument, for one may simply reply that though the semantic point is true, there are still three human individuals, and so why not three divine individuals? The fifth chapter then details Gregory’s response to the claim that there are three divine individuals by showing how the defining attributes or particularities of human persons are not present in the divine persons. Whereas human persons are differentiated by their having their own principles of movement, action and will, the trinitarian persons do not have these separately, but rather there is one power, goodness, will etc which is effected by all three persons of the trinity. In this way Gregory retains the divine unity by showing the disanalogy between divine persons and human persons, even though both kinds of persons are multiple hypostases sharing one nature respectively.
Such a strong emphasis on unity is in danger of confusing the persons, because if they are the same in every respect then there is no differentiation, and the persons are a fiction. Rather, chapter seven details how Gregory points to cause as the one criterion which establishes the peculiar attribute which differentiates the persons. The Father is the cause, the Son is caused directly by the Father, and the Spirit is caused by the Father through the mediation of the Son. The ‘process’ of causation and mediation is not to be understood as a temporal succession, for Gregory affirms that it happens ‘without delay’ and emphasises that “between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit there is no interstice into which the mind might step as into a void.” The generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit are eternal, and the causal distinction only goes to how the divine being subsists, and not to what it is. The whole being of Godhead thus remains eternal, uncreated, perfect in goodness and power, unchangeable, and ineffable. It is only the “idea of cause [that] differentiates the Persons of the Holy Trinity” and this distinction only penetrates to the mode of being, not the nature of being. This nature remains “unchangeable and undivided, for these reasons we properly declare the Godhead to be one, and God to be one, and employ in the singular all other names which express Divine attributes” – thereby Gregory shows Ablabius why we do not say there are ‘three gods’."

more john mayer magic

2009-05-01T18:09:00.001Z

.
ok, posts concerning events in my life will soon follow... promise. in the meantime, watch this.

on suffering and theological hope

2009-04-16T17:44:00.003Z

here's a selection from an essay I recently submitted on Johann Metz's political theology.

"For Metz, the memory of human suffering cannot be reduced to “a social history of oppression,” for the writing of that history often serves as little “more than a screen against which we project our present interests.” Selective accounts of past suffering merely serve as instruments by which the present order justifies its conduct. In this moment of justification, genuinely novel anticipations of hope for the hopeless are excluded by the trajectory of emancipation drawn in the self-interested struggle. Thus, a broad memoria passionis serves to raise suspicion about society’s plausibility structures, by exposing the way in which their historical self-accounting transforms them into “obfuscation structures.” When memory keeps the absolute meaninglessness of suffering in our minds, it “gives the lie to this whole affirmative… teleology” and calls into question of “the banality of what we take to be ‘realism’.” In the process of secularization in which humanity takes over from God as being the subject of history, the responsibility and the guilt of all history seems to “fall back onto human beings themselves.” In order to avoid this, emancipation is written merely as an abstract history of success, which finally exculpates itself by turning “one’s fellow human beings into enemies.” In this zero-sum process there is no liberation from guilt, or genuine redemption, but only the temporary redistribution of power. The memory of suffering keeps the ubiquity of guilt in mind, and therefore the hope of a redemption that is not anticipated by a linear ideological history. One problem is the limitation that arises from considering “human suffering in its concreteness…[as] the starting point for proclaiming the new form of life.” Are there not goods of human flourishing that find no negative expression in suffering, such that a consideration or memory of suffering could never discover the antithetical moment that allows the positive moment to be anticipated or emerge? Perhaps at this point, an aesthetic claim is needed to complement Metz’s political fundamental claims."

gregory of nyssa - on 'not three gods'

2009-04-10T17:38:00.000Z

"As we have to a certain extent shown by our statement that the word "Godhead" is not significant of nature but of operation, perhaps one might reasonably allege as a cause why, in the case of men, those who share with one another in the same pursuits are enumerated and spoken of in the plural, while on the other hand the Deity is spoken of in the singular as one God and one Godhead, even though the Three Persons are not separated from the significance expressed by the term "Godhead,"— one might allege, I say, the fact that men, even if several are engaged in the same form of action, work separately each by himself at the task he has undertaken, having no participation in his individual action with others who are engaged in the same occupation. For instance, supposing the case of several rhetoricians, their pursuit, being one, has the same name in the numerous cases: but each of those who follow it works by himself, this one pleading on his own account, and that on his own account. Thus, since among men the action of each in the same pursuits is discriminated, they are properly called many, since each of them is separated from the others within his ownenvironment, according to the special character of his operation. But in the case of the Divine nature we do not similarly learn that the Father does anything by Himself in which the Son does not work conjointly, or again that the Son has any special operation apart from the Holy Spirit; but every operation which extends from God to the Creation, and is named according to our variable conceptions of it, has its origin from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit. For this reason the name derived from the operation is not divided with regard to the number of those who fulfil it, because theaction of each concerning anything is not separate and peculiar, but whatever comes to pass, in reference either to the acts of His providence for us, or to the government and constitution of the universe, comes to pass by the action of the Three, yet what does come to pass is not three things."

from the rooftop

2009-04-08T22:57:00.002Z

click on the photo for full-size

on christ

2009-04-02T03:16:00.002Z

Today I gave in to my vice for impulse-buying books, and treated myself to a copy of one of the most interesting books that will come out this year, called The Monstrosity of Christ.

It is co-authored by Slavoj Zizek and John Milbank. Actually, it's not so much co-authored by them, as they both have essays in which they attack the other. Here's the product description:

"In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, "radical orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have proven themselves worthy adversaries--and have also shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed.

Žižek has long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century's greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ concerns nothing less than the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event—God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others.

Žižek begins, and Milbank answers, countering dialectics with "paradox." The debate centers on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation."

I may post some reflections, but don't count on it - you know what I'm like. And if you're wondering what on earth this book has to do with anything like the real Christianity lived by people who go to church - you're right, it doesn't. But it does have an affect on the broader issues of politics and religion, and will be a book that 'trickles' down, being debated in the academy, taught in the seminaries, preached in the pulpit, and finally lived by the people - but not in any form recognisable in the book.

on donne

2009-03-31T18:07:00.002Z

In the Church of England, today, 31st of March, is the day on which John Donne (1631) is commemorated. In his honour, then, I post here one of his most 'aweful' poems - in that best sense of awful, as that which inspires and fills with awe.

Holy Sonnets, XIV

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

on bliss

2009-03-30T17:05:00.000Z

this is blissful.

on theology and prayer

2009-03-29T00:07:00.002Z

There is a perennial misunderstanding about the relation between theology and spirituality that mistakenly believes that theology (or theoria) comes first, and tells you what you need to know in order to practice your spirituality (praxis). This may be the order of logic but not the order of discovery. In real life, spirituality often precedes theology - it was only in following and obeying Jesus that the disciples began to discover who he was, and their fullest understanding of Jesus only comes after the resurrection, after the mysterious encounter on the road to Emmaus and the meal that followed it.

Something similar is said by almost all the early theologians of the Church, and in summarising the writing of Maximus the Confessor (a Byzantine theologian from the 6th century) Andrew Louth writes: "the contrast between Maximus in his major treatises and in his condensed summaries is not at all that between 'theology' and 'spirituality', for as we shall see, even in the densest of his theological treatises, Maximus' concern for the life of prayer and engagement with God is still uppermost. The purpose of theology is to safeguard against misunderstandings that frustrate a Christian life of prayer."
Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor, London: Routledge, 1996. p. viii

should i give up practicing?

2009-03-18T17:04:00.002Z

I'm on spring break this week, so there's not much news - I'm just getting started on my 20-page papers that are due at the end of semester.

I saw this clip on youtube today. Makes me wonder why I try!

The Road Not Taken

2009-03-07T17:26:00.002Z

I thought I would post the full poem that inspired the title and tag-line for this blog.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost

on historical-critical method

2009-03-06T17:13:00.002Z

The first three words every biblical studies scholar learns are "We don't know." Try reading any commentary. Author? We don't know. Date of composition? We don't know. Provenance? We don't know. Logos in John's prologue referring to Greek concept of logos, or a translation of the Hebrew 'wisdom' in Sirach? We don't know. This is because knowledge deals with the realm of (near) certainties, but biblical scholars work in probability. Paul the author of Ephesians? Maybe, maybe not. There's evidence both ways, and so it becomes a question of probability, of balancing the evidence to see if the weight falls one way or the other.

Considering how little biblical scholars claim can be known, it's quite remarkable how they then proceed to reconstruct the text history with precise divisions between sources and where the redactor made changes. Read any commentary on the community background to the Johannine corpus and you'll be amazed at the imagination of biblical scholars who make startling jumps from tiny scraps of evidence.

This particular form of study is often referred to as the 'historical-critical' method, and the fantastical claims made has duly been parodied in this brilliant article. It's basically a satirical piece, applying the historical-critical method to Winnie the Pooh to show just how ridiculous claims about the 'assured results of higher criticism' often are. You can read the full article here for a bit of fun; here's a quote to give you a taste:

"Doublets also occur. We may mention brieþy the two accounts of meetings with a Heffalump (W 5; H 3). and two accounts of the building of a house.(H 1; 9), variously connected with Eeyore and with Owl. An excellent example of the redactor's method in intertwining his sources may be seen in the account of Pooh's being stuck in the entrance to Rabbit's house (W 2. 24). When Pooh realizes he is stuck, according to the Þrst source:

'Oh, help!', said Pooh. 'I'd better go back.'

But according to the second source:

'Oh, bother!', said Pooh. 'I shall have to go on.'

The redactor has simply set down these two contradictory statements side by side, and then has attempted to harmonize them by his own conþation:

'I can't do either!', said Pooh. 'Oh, help and bother!'

The clearest criterion, however, for the analysis of the sources is the attitude taken to Pooh, who is clearly no 'non-descript individual'./6/ The whole P-corpus may indeed be divided into sources favourable to Pooh, and sources hostile to Pooh.
The dominant impression gained by the modern reader of the books is that Pooh is a Bear of Very Small Brain. The following descriptions occur:

Bear of Little Brain (W 9.121)
Bear of Very Little Brain (W 9.130; H 1.174; etc.)
Bear with a Pleasing Manner but a Positively Startling Lack of Brain (H 10.161)
He hasn't much brain, and may do something silly (W 9.127)
Silly old bear.(W 2.25, 26, 29; 3.37; 8.101)
Silly Old Pooh (W 10.142)
His spelling is Wobbly (W 6.73)

He is also depicted as getting into scrapes, difÞculties, and problems through his stupidity (passim).
It is of the greatest importance, however, to notice that this representation of Pooh actually comes from only one circle of tradition, which we may designate the D (or Dopey) source. A very different impression is given by other sources favourable to Pooh. Here he is the hero, deliverer (e.g. Þnder of Eeyore's tail, W 4), poet in many different genres (e.g. W 7.90), discoverer of the North Pole (W 8), and possibly also of the East Pole (W 9.122), though the tradition is somewhat uncertain at this point, inventor of the Floating Bear and the Brain of Pooh (W 9.129-30), culture-hero building the Þrst house (H 1.27) and inventing Pooh-sticks (H 6). His epithets in these narratives include:

Brave and Clever Bear (W 9.129)
Astute and Helpful Bear (H 8.139)
The best bear in all the world (W 10.143)
Sir Pooh de Bear (H 10.173)

And he has bestowed on him a lengthy list of honoriÞc titles (FOP, RC, PD, EC and TF, W 9.130).
We may discern, nonetheless, in the above catalogue, two portrayals of Pooh that are not entirely compatible with one another. According to some tales he is the man of genius and invention (e.g. inventor of the Brain of Pooh), but in others he Þgures rather as the reþective intellectual (e.g. author of wisdom poetry). Thus we may well suspect that we are dealing here with two sources, both perhaps deriving from one original Grundlage, but which we may distinguish and denominate the J (or Genius)/7/ source, and the E (or Egghead) source."

on ghetto blasters

2009-02-28T22:08:00.003Z

Today I saw something I never thought I would see. I had just woken up, was pottering about in my room, (muttering with dismay at the eve-growing pile of laundry - isn't it just supposed to disappear and magically re-appear in my dresser, clean, fresh and ironed??) and I heard some memory-evoking 80s music drifting up to my window from the street below. It was Whiteney Houston's I wanna dance with somebody. Click on the link now and listen to it in the background so you can get the full experience. I started to shift my weight from side to side, slowing introducing ever more complex and exagerrated movements, until I was the literal embodiment of 80s frizzy-hair-pink-stockings-Fame dance style. I peered out the window to discover unto myself the provenace of this heavenly ditty, and saw on the far side of the road an old black man, hunched over, head adorned with a (probably purloined) yellow workman's hard hat, with nothing less than an old school ghetto blaster nestled on his left shoulder, speakers pointing into his ears. He was obviously a Whitney fan too, and I felt a communion between us as we, each in our own way, shuffled to the vibrancy of that now defunct plastic music.

on the secret life of guitar gods

2009-02-24T13:42:00.003Z

Here's a blog that guitarists may want to follow. John Mayer is blogging through the recording of his fourth album and it looks like it's going to be really interesting. He's already posted one video of him practicing and thinking about new ideas for riffs and melodies. Partly inspiring, it's also partly depressing, as you watch how he rips on his guitar with ease in a way I never could, and then complains that he's a bit rusty cause he hasn't played for a while. Here's the video.

on doughnuts and wrong numbers

2009-02-24T13:14:00.002Z

On Monday nights I take a class on Thomas Aquinas at Fordham University, so I travel north up into the Bronx, and it's a brisk, chilly (at least during winter) walk for 15 mins from the train station to the campus. On the walk home last night I fancied I would treat myself at Dunkin Doughnuts and get myself a boston kreme. Spelt with a K.
The girl asked me 'anything else?'
I said 'no thank you'
She said 'it's on the house'
I said 'really?'
She said 'yeah, it's better in your stomach than in the trash!'
I thought 'perhaps not..this is dunkin doughnuts after all'
But never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I happily responded by requesting 4 more of the doughnuts.
Upon reaching the train station and beginning to eat the first one, I realised why they were giving them away, and thought that even for four, the $1 I paid had been one dollar too much.

On a diffferent note, I was at the coffee shop with Nate yesterday - surprise, surprise - and we were discussing the social mores regarding people putting their number on facebook and at what point you're entitled to use that number to call them. This prompted Nate to remember when I put my first US cell phone number on there. He rang me, and got a lady who said it was a wrong number. So he wrote back on my wall that I had put the number up incorrectly. So I rang Nate with my phone, and it indeed showed the number on his screen exactly the same as I had entered it on facebook.

Basically, the number that Virgin had assigned me was already in use, and I could make outgoing calls in which people would see my number, but when they called that number back, it would never come to me, only to this other lady. And boy, did people try and call me.

Understandably, this woman began to be very upset at all the calls she was receiving. (She should have been happy I suppose..my friends are rather nice!) When I rang Virgin, they said that since it was a new phone, maybe it was just taking time for the processing of the account to be finalised, and to try again in a day or two. Which we did, and when Nate rang the woman again, the husband jumped on the phone and blew up: "Listen buddy, I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but you KNOW this is not your friend's number, so stop harassing my wife! Hey man, I've got your number and I can find out where you live, and if you ever ring my wife again, I'm gonna come and find you, and you don't wanna know what I'll do!" Hmm, I almost felt partly responsilble for Nate's apparently imminent demise. We felt much joy in recalling this incident.

on lucky clothing

2009-02-23T17:13:00.003Z

Played our third basketball game last night. And lost again. I wore the same underwear and shorts in all three games (without washing in between of course), losing two and winning one, so I think it's fair to deduce from these statistics that this clothing arrangement is not lucky. It maybe be however, that the luck emanating from them was not directed toward my and my teams sporting success, but my safety. I'm lucky enough not to have been injured. But perhaps that's due to something else emanating from them other than luck, i.e. an odour. You must be close to someone to foul them, after all.

on reading calvin

2009-02-22T20:45:00.003Z

While reading the Calvin material I began thinking about how it might be rather easy for one to develop anithetical feelings toward him, and I was reminded how Barth tried to show his deep appreciation for Schleiermacher, even though he profoundly disagreed with him. And so as I was reading an essay by John Webster on Barth's historical lectures at Gottingen, I cames across this passage which I thought would be pertinent to keep in mind as I read Calvin, or any other theologian from history: (The quotes and page numbers are from Barth's "Protestant Theology")

" 'We hear the voices of the ancients in order to give an answer by our own attitude and decision. But we do that for or against ourselves, not for or against them" (p8). The root of this deferential and patient attitude towards our forebears is, very simply, that 'we are with them in the Church' (p 10) ...There is therefore a unity to the history of theology which the historian may not breach by consigning part of that history to the rubbuish heap: 'over and above the differences, a unity can be seen, a unity of perplexity and disquiet, but also a unity of richness and hope, which in the end binds us to the theologians of the past' (p13). And this means, further, that the historian of the Church must never allow confession of the Church's unity to be eclipsed by hostile judgement. 'Credo unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam [trans. I believe in one, holy, catholic, apostolic church] is the reason for this, and if I am to pay attention to a theologian from the past, whether he is called Schleiermacher or Ritschl or anyone else, then I must be deadly serious about this credo' (p14). In the end, therefore, the historian can only remember that 'I and my theological work are only in the Church on the ground of forgiveness' (p14); that recognition is the ground of charity in historical judgement."

Or, to put it more succintly, we all make mistakes so let's have some grace for Christians of an earlier age who phrased things in ways we might not today!

(N.B. don't take this to mean that I have profound disagreements with Calvin)

what year is it?

2009-02-16T03:42:00.002Z

It seems the Roman Catholic church has been quietly reintroducing forms of penance long thought abandoned - in particular, indulgences. Websites and church bulletins for various parishes in New York have been offering them, though people often don't even know what they are! This has been reported in a New York Times article here.

Here's a quote, for those not au fait with indugences.

"According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.

There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day."

I feel like I'm back in the Middle Ages. Next thing you know, they'll be reforming the Knights Templar. (though conspiracy theorists will tell you they are alive and well as an underground secret society!)

where's joaquin?

2009-02-14T23:03:00.002Z

Some would have the mistaken impression that all I do is watch youtube videos all day. It's just that alot of my reading for class at the moment is background information before I get into the meat of Calvin, Auquinas, Agustine, et. al. Posts, analysis, and quotations of them - all that will come in good time. For now, some of the pleasurable moments of my day come from the latest youtube shenanigans, including this 10 min clip of Joaquin Phoenix's latest appearance on the David Letterman show...joaquin like you've never seen him before.

what really happened

2009-02-10T05:30:00.001Z

more pain

2009-02-09T05:22:00.004Z

Ok, so the basketball practice was fun, but I was VERY rusty. In fact I think I only hit one jump shot from maybe 8 or 9 that I took during the pratice game, and I also missed several lay-ups. So I committed myself to some serious practice sessions, going back to the basics, taking lots of free-throws and trying to get my eye back in.

On Sunday nights the gym is open for recreational use from 5.30pm til midnight, so I thought it would be quiet from 11pm on. When I got there it was kinda busy, but they were just starting a full-court game and needed 1 extra player...good timing! So I had a good 45 minute run out. Only problem is that I'm still breaking my running shoes in.

This is what happens when you play with new shoes.

Pete - sorry for ruining the birthday socks. I'm sure you understand!

feel the pain

2009-02-06T16:22:00.002Z

While only undergradutes can join and play for the official Columbia basketball team, the university also caters for what are called 'intramural' teams - i.e. other undergrads, plus grad students can form social teams and play in a league. Normally people divide by department; the law school will have a team, and the MBA kids, and the medicine students etc. So, Union has a basketball team, which I've joined because I really need the exercise and the agression outlet!

We had a practice at 8am this morning, played full court for two hours, and now I'm sore all over. I always feel it in my lower back for some reason. I think I might lie down for an hour or so, then go to my fav coffee shop and read for a couple hours. It's a tough life huh?? :-)

'sanctify them in your truth'

2009-02-06T02:17:00.004Z

It is often wondered whether theology is of any use - isn't it just semantics and hair-splitting? "Let's just get on with living" people can be heard to say. I recently read a delightful article in the Irish Theological Quarterley called 'Theology as a Road to Sanctification?' in which the author discusses various parts of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, particularly those in which the vocation of the theologian is considered. She writes:

"One is reminded of where Thomas wrote of sacra doctrina that it ‘bears, as it were, the stamp of the divine knowledge which is one and simple, yet extends to everything.’ Hence, God ‘teaches knowledge’ and it seems that the knowledge that is taught is a sacra doctrina. This is verified as Thomas continues his consideration of the acquisition of knowledge and explains the close relationship between that which is understood and the one doing the understanding. God, when God moves the intellect, ‘impresses on the student the likeness of the thing understood.’ The effect is not that the student comes to comprehend God, but that God might be better understood, and that the student might become holy."

In short, the process in which God acts to move the intellect to understand is one of sanctification, and thus theology is a holy exercise. Which is not to say that everything calling itelf 'theology' is thereby holy, but that the giving over of one's intellect into submission to sacred truth is not an unnecessary, superfluous act. It directs one's mind and action to that end for which we are created, and toward which we are being saved.

I was then reading St. Athanasius' work De incarnatione verbi dei, or 'On the incarnation of the word of God'. The introduction, surprisignly, was written by C.S. Lewis of all people, and he commends the study of such theological works with this beautiful image:

"For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."

So, everyone take a pipe to your next home group or bible study!

Sanctifica eos in veritate; sermo tuus veritas est.

Union quad

2009-01-23T21:47:00.003Z

here's a lovely photo of the quad at my school, taken by a friend during the very latest fall of snow. beautiful!

tidbits

2009-01-20T20:43:00.002Z

Well, an eventful few days. Here's some tidbits from around the place.

First, Sufjan Stevens produced an album for a group known as 'Welcome Wagon' which is a husband and wife duo. Go here and listen to one of their songs; leave it playing in the background while you read the rest of my post.

Second, some good news. I got my final piece of work back yesterday, and all my essays received distinctions. Which sounds good, but simply means I didn't stuff anything up!

Thirdly, it snowed again yesterday, but it was magical dreamy snow, the kind of giant, soft flakes that do not fall so much as meander to the earth. With each thermal gust and shift of wind the flakes would rise or fall, swirling sideways in a nonchalant eddy that was in no particular rush to hurry to the earth and its inevitable demise, melting or being trodden under foot. Preston and I took a long walk along the river in the evening, threw snowballs at unsuspecting passersby, sledded down a short hill, and got our feet wet.

Fourthly, a whole bunch of kids from school got together in one of the common rooms and we watched the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. Washington had close to 2 million people crowding the mall, and it was a sight to behold. Plus his speech was amazing, and I started to think again about the power of oratory to unify, encourage, and move people. I suppose though, this is where the rubber hits the road, and the real worth of his presidency will be seen in his foreign diplomacy and domestic economic decisions.

Fifthly...I don't think there is a fifthly!

claims, pins, and lanes

2009-01-15T19:56:00.003Z

Over the last two days I read 'A short introduction to the philosophy of science' which was a really good primer for the main issues - induction, deduction, falsifiability, paradigm change, theory/data relation, inference to best explanation etc. I wanted to brush up on those ideas precisely because they become germane to the construction of Christology. We look at Jesus' life as 'data' and from that construct a 'theory' of Christology. Some people get a bit allergic to the word 'theory' as if it means the same as 'hypothesis' - which it doesn't. The worry seems to be that if I say Christology is a theory, that it's "one theory among others", that I'm not sure if it's true. But that's not really the way the language of theory works. For example, we say "the theory of gravity" but it's not as if we're in doubt about the existence of gravity; jump out a window if you're not sure.

Theory is the language one uses about a description of reality that is meant to make sense of the data and phenomena that appear to us, to go behind the scenes as it were, to give an explanation of why we see what we see.

And this is the kind of thing going on in Christology. We 'see' the life of Jesus, the miracles, the teaching, the parables, the prophetic action, the resurrection, the post-ressurection appearances, the ascension. From that, the Church began to come to a realisation of the profound reality that had been responsible for those phenomenon and were led to conclude that Jesus was God. The relation between his divinity and humanity is what Christology is trying to explain. And so I'm heading out the door right now to go and read at the coffee shop for 2 hours. I may not end up agreeing with Pannenberg, but he sets out the whole argument perhaps better than anyone, and because of that I can only gain from reading him.

Pins and lanes is because I'm going bowling tonight! Didn't do anything for my birthday, and this isn't a birthday thing for me, but my friend is paying as a belated gift. It's all good. You know I'll win, or die trying.

childhood memories

2009-01-11T01:18:00.003Z

This won the Topfest Australia short film award, and I reckon quite a few people had flashbacks to their own childhood while watching this film. There are so many brilliant details - the spokey-dokeys, the dunlop volleys, the canvas school bag, the jumps etc. If you grew up in Australia, you'll love this video.

ontology by advertisers

2009-01-10T02:25:00.003Z

Thanks to my dad for reading my previous post and filling me in on a tidbit of missing info. AC Grayling, a British philosspher and atheist here gives the background to why the word 'probably' was inserted. Apparently media standards don't allow such things as outright denials of God to be said! Grayling tries to make the case that if we're to all play by the same rules, then religious groups should have to add the cavet 'allegedly' to their claims for the existence of divine being. But this seems a little redundant. For example, Alpha adverts don't say things like 'There is a God'. They say things like "Explore the meaning of life". Anyway. Intersting to see 453 comments regarding Grayling's article, but I suppose it is mostly just the rattling of sabres by theists and atheists alike.

only probably?

2009-01-09T23:19:00.003Z

Firstly, though I seemed rather optimistic in my assumption about how much I could get done on Pannenberg, I did only say I would be regular, not frequent. Once a month is still regular :)

But seriously, I handed in my 12,000 word paper today, and I have no money for extra-curricular activity, so I will have lots of time to read and write - the first post will be up tomorrow! Having said that, I'd like to enjoy some time reading poetry, and playing music. Pannenberg will be my side interest.

Here is a link to the atheist bus campaign coming to an English town near you. What I find slightly amusing about the whole thing is that they couldn't quite find the certainty to say that 'there is no God'. Instead they wrote 'there's probably no God. now stop worrying and enjoy your life'. But if one was walking down the street and saw this, wouldn't the thought cross one's mind - "Probably? You mean you're not sure? Well, if God is possible, then maybe I should think about it." The great age of atheism has actually been dead for a while. Most people aren't atheists. They believe in 'some higher power' but they're not sure what that might be. So, lacking a convinced and confident billboard, the response the bus may generate is: "Only probably? So.....you're sayin there's a chance?" Nod to Lloyd.

term's end

2008-12-16T14:18:00.004Z

The end of the semester is (somewhat) in sight. I handed one of my bigger papers in last Friday, and over the weekend I've been finishing the reading and note-taking for the study I've been making of Maximus the Confessor, a sixth century Byzantine theologian. I'm going to hand that work in today, and then tomorrow I will write my constructive summary essay on the relationship between theology, ethics, and spirituality. That's when the fun starts - as an STM student I have to nominate one of my papers from either semester to be an extended paper; 40 pages, or about 12,000 words. I've been doing a study on major approaches to religous language, and whether and how we can say anything of God, and over the Christmas break I'll be writing 2 pages a day for 20 days, and hopefully that will get me to 40 pages well enough!

In the meantime I'm starting to read something for personal interest. I've been thinking alot about Christology, and the way we elaborate the divine nature of Jesus. One of the issues here is that many of the titles Jesus used of himself were common stock in his time and didn't ever denote anything like the divine nature that we now attribute to Jesus - so how do we get from the biblical text, to something like a Trinitarian view? A landmark work on Christology is Wolfhart Pannenberg's book "Jesus - God and Man", a 400-page tour de force. I'll be reading through this over Christmas break, maybe 20 pages a day in the evening, and I'll put up regular blog posts (promise!) and quotations from the book to chew over.

evangelicals and Obama

2008-12-11T20:08:00.002Z

For my course on 'Dogmatics and Politics', I'm writing a paper on evangelical support for the Obama and the Democrat party in the 2008 election. As a case study I looked at the Matthew 25 Network, a PAC (political action committee) that was run by evangelicals in explicit support of Obama, and below is a section I wrote about the way they designed and worded their campaign.

"What distinguishes the Matthew 25 Network from other examples of the evangelical shift to the left, is that because it is aligned to a specific party and claims the alignment as the direct conclusion of their theological beliefs, they need to give a theological rationale for Obama’s policies. Regarding life with dignity, they quote Obama saying that “As children of God, we believe in the worth and dignity of every human person.” On the necessity of arranging health cover for every America, Obama claims it is a “moral commitment.” About poverty, Obama says “we need to heed the biblical call to care for `the least of these' and lift the poor out of despair” a direct reference to Matthew 25. And again, with regard to environmental policy, Obama is quoted as saying that what he “draw[s] from the Genesis story is the importance of us being good stewards of the land.” The prominence of this selection of quotations is made to encourage evangelicals to see a direct link between the bible, their personal faith, and Obama’s policies. Further, the overarching theme of judgement in Matthew 25, that those who do not care for the ‘least of these’ are condemned, carries with it a psychological force amongst evangelicals as people concerned with their salvation. The allusion is weakly and implicitly, yet persistently, making the claim that to not vote for Obama would be to not care for the least of these, and land oneself on the side of the goats. The ultimate point the Matthew 25 campaign is driving toward is the conviction that if one is a biblical, committed and honest Christian, one must acknowledge that Obama’s policies best represent the political application of the gospel message, and therefore if one is to be faithful to the gospel message, only a vote for Obama is consistent with evangelical faith."

I later critique this method as follows:

"For this reason the Barmen Declaration denies that the Church “could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.” In light of this dogmatic statement, a critique of the work of the Matthew 25 Network presents itself forcefully. It was seen from the analysis of the language from the campaign website that more than congruency was drawn between faithfulness to the gospel and voting for Obama; rather, it implied that faithfulness to the gospel necessitated a vote for Obama, and the reversal that seems to have taken place is that biblical phrases and imagery are being employed ‘in the service of arbitrarily chosen plans’ (which a secular Democrat platform must be) – and this is the very thing that Barmen rejects. The positive endorsement of Obama by an explicitly evangelical group seeks to so identify his agenda with the gospel message, that the gospel message is for practical purposes exhausted in Obama’s political policies, and thus no space is left for the gospel to critique and call to account the Obama administration. If that is this situation, then a dogmatic criticism of the Matthew 25 Network would be that it has put limitations and restrictions on the gospel that prevent complete faithfulness to the task of proclamation that the Church has been given."

the coming winter

2008-12-07T20:25:00.004Z

One of the most appealing features of New York is that it actually gets all four seasons, and genuine seasons. One can rather accurately guess the month simply by the weather, whereas in England one would be completely at a loss. And so, appropriately, the creeping coldness of the coming winter warmed just enough yesterday to bless our chilly cheeks and faces with the cold yet soft kiss of snow flakes gently descending down upon us.

Nate, Preston and I had begun walking down Broadway avenue in search of a cinema and some visual escapist entertainment. We came to several cinemas but none were showing anything we wanted to see, and so we kept walking - all the way to Times Square, which is on 42nd street. The quicker ones amongst you will, recalling I live on 122nd, calculate we walked 80 blocks!! We eventually found a cinema, bought tickets for 'Nobel Son' and in the hour-long wait, we took a walk to the Rockefeller Centre which has the famous ice-skating rink in front of the building and a giant Christmas tree. We arrived there, guided by the incandescent trees wrapped in fairy lights that lined the sidewalk. Did I mention I love lights?! So we got there, looked at it for a while, soaked up the atmosphere, made small-talk with fellow Rockerfeller pilgrims, and then just as we were leaving, the drift passed over and enveloped us in a cloud of white night-time surprise. We gazed up, crooked-necked, agape in childlike wonder as the flakes softly floated down, illuminated by the city lights, and rested on us.

And so I'm resting. It has been a very busy week, and my head was getting foggy. I had planned to work over the weekend, but that night I decided not to do anything til Monday. I'm going to head down to Borders now, listen to the new Jon Foreman album, relax with a coffee, and be good to myself and my soul. When was the last time you did the same?

the lanyard

2008-11-28T04:12:00.002Z

'The Lanyard' is a poem by the poet laureate Billy Collins, and I read it in the comments section of another blog the other day. It touched my heart a little, so I thought I would share it here:

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room
bouncing from typewriter to piano
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the "L" section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word, Lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past.
A past where I sat at a workbench
at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard.
A gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard.
Or wear one, if that’s what you did with them.
But that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand
again and again until I had made a boxy, red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold facecloths on my forehead
then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim and I in turn presented her with a lanyard.
"Here are thousands of meals" she said,
"and here is clothing and a good education."
"And here is your lanyard," I replied,
"which I made with a little help from a counselor."
"Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth and two clear eyes to read the world." she whispered.
"And here," I said, "is the lanyard I made at camp."
"And here," I wish to say to her now,
"is a smaller gift. Not the archaic truth,
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took the two-toned lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless worthless thing I wove out of boredom
would be enough to make us even."

a veritable tea party

2008-11-25T20:50:00.002Z

I've been in Boston since Friday, visiting Ben Hanchett. It's been really good to hang out with my old childhood chum and we've reminisced about the glory of our rollerblading days, cruising down the hills of Hallet Cove. Now we're a little older we like to hang out in more refined places; Ben took me to the Boston cigar room, and we sat in high-backed leather armchairs, puffing fat Dominicans, and dreaming about the future. We also went to see the new Bond film, which I highly recommend, although the suave and witty tete-a-tete we have come to love of our roguish British intelligence agent was sadly missing.

The problem was that after buying hotdogs from a street vendor, we only had 6 dollars between us -not enough for a taxi ride- and thus ensued a long walk home in the bitter cold; minus 8!. While eating said hotdog, I lost all feeling in my fingers which were cruelly exposed to the elements in the act of grasping and directing the hotdog toward my food hole.

Last night I met up with my sociology of religion professor from Liverpool Hope University, and we sort of crashed the Oxford University reception at the Society for Biblical Literature conference. I managed to chat with the director of postgrad admissions, which was helpful and clarified a few things in my mind. But the free cheese and wine was the highlight of the evening!

to lighten the mood

2008-11-20T21:33:00.004Z

Ok, so Johann Metz probably went down like a lead balloon and made you feel guilty for not having sold everything and moved to the Amazonian jungle to evangelise lost tribes. So here's some light-hearted fare to make you feel better :-)

First, this delightful comic from Perry Bible Fellowship (probably not actually a church). Click on the picture to enlarge.

Second, check out Pandora which is an online radio site. It's quick and easy to sign up, and then you just select a genre of music and it streams songs as long as you want, free of charge. You can discover loads of great new artists you'd never heard of before doing this. I often stream classical music while typing assignments. Keeps me chilled!

Thirdly, check out this latest from John Mayer.

who you calling bourgeois?

2008-11-18T03:00:00.005Z

Here's a very thought provoking excerpt from Johann Baptist Metz, a German Catholic theologian:

"The bishops sense the dangers which the practice of bourgeois religion contains for the life of the church. They are aware that the church will not so much change the hearts of the bourgeois as it will be changed by the bourgeois into the institution of 'their' religion, becoming a church which is there simply to service their own security needs. Nevertheless, the pastoral approach of our church toward bourgeois religion tends rather to be one of resignation: it is a strategy of latent mistrust fed by the suspicion that in the end the bourgeois are no really to be trusted, and that they would ultimately overwhelm Christianity totally with their priorities and preferences if one were to give in to them in a single instance. So the bishops react with legal rigorism in those cases in which actual or supposed truisms of bourgeois society come into all too open conflict with the preaching of the church: for example, in the question of divorce, especially the readmission of divorced people to the sacraments, in family and sexual morality, and lastly, in the matter of cumpulsory celibacy. What I am saying here is in no way to attack the Christian ideal of monogamy, to make a plea for sexual license, or to oppose the eschatalogical-apocalyptic virtue of celibacy. The question is only whether such legal rigorism is the way both to overcome the contradictions of bourgeois religion in Christianity, and to make the Christian alternatives to a bourgeois way of life really visible. Or to put it another way, whether this is the direction needed to heal the split between the messianic virtues of the gospel we preach and those which the bourgeois practice; that is, whether conversion leading to discipleship will become possible."

The problem here enunciated is that faced by a late modern institutional church in Europe, with it's own peculiarities. It's significance for now is simply this: the way a certain moral rigorism takes the place of a genuinely radical gospel lifestyle. This was paralleled in the way that forms of early Pentecostalism banned all sorts of things - smoking, drinking, dancing, fun of any kind - and this was not alongside the radical politics of Jesus, but replaced it, so as to exhaust the radical impulse of Christianity in personal moral legalism, instead of solidarity with the poor and oppressed (see Luke 4). This substitution occurs today, to take one example, in the way that Christian commitment to financial discipline manifests in the practice of giving to the church for it's buildings, rather than to the poor. Church activity becomes a proxy for genuine world-engaging discipleship, and one feels very committed, but the radical gospel lifestyle is absent. Deus meus, misericordia mea.

listenings and thinkings

2008-11-12T00:18:00.003Z

To compound the basic jealousy you undoubtedly all feel toward me for having a free-ride year in New York, I would like to continue sharing various aspects of my rather enjoyable social life.

Last Thursday I went to see the Smashing Pumpkins at the United Palace Theatre, on 175th and Broadway. There was a lot of anticipation about this comeback tour, but not all the fans left happy. I was one who left elated. They played a few of their more popular numbers - today, bullet with butterfly wings, tonight tonight - balanced with several of their newer ones, but the crowd shouted for alot of songs they never got. Instead, Billy Corgan fully indulged his guitar rock-god dreams by busting 10 min jam sessions and incredible, sonically complex mixtures of delay and feedback effects. It was phenomenal. After about an hour, they brought out a miniature drum kit, an acoustic guitar, and a rhodes keyboard. I'll get my gripe out of the way - Americans find it impossible to sit still, not talk, and appreciate the music. The delicate acoustic session was permanently disturbed by a continual hum of background chit-chat. I wanted to kill someone. But the beauty of the music and harmony was enough to soothe my troubled soul, and I closed my eyes to soak it up. After 30 mins, they switched back to the normal set-up and proceeded to outdo themselves with an even heavier session of hard metal, topped with an awesome cover of Pink Floyd's "set the controls" For the encore, they came out and the band lined up in front of the microphones, only the pianist playing. They sang 'they only come out at night' and then one guy repeated the melody with a kazoo...surreal, and funny for that reason. Billy then began talking to the crowd and basically mocked them. There had been some booing during the solos, and in his final coup de grace, he imitated them like this: "Oh Billy, why? Why won't you play the songs I lost my virginity to?" Needless to say many laughed, and many felt chastised and booed some more. Well, this is New York after all, the city of cynics. For me, it was the best rock concert I've ever been to.

I also went to an art gallery exhibition/social justice event, which featured amazing photographs by a woman who had been touring Uganda and taking photos of people in a certain village that was having a well dug. After perusing the photos, sipping white wine, and pretending like a knew good photo art when I saw it, we all gathered round to listen to a brief talk by a guy called Sean who related his adventures in the Congo where he discovered a prison of child soldiers, met the Colonel of the resistance army, and forged press documents to sneak into the prison and release some boys. His story can be found here at Falling Whistles, which is also the name of a charity he started to raise awareness about the situation in Congo, which is currently the worst humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world and most people don't know about it.

While I was there I met a guy who was a magnificent embodiment of an American stereotype. He was a high school football star in Montana, but he broke his ankle. He was then spotted in the mall by a model scout, moved to New York, worked as a bare-chested Abercrombie & Fitch store rep, and now he does all sorts of modelling - product launches, runway, and best of all club-going. Yes, that's right folks, there are clubs in New York that hire models to go to their clubs to boost it's reputation for having young and beautiful people. So his job, if you can call it that, involves getting paid to go to the best clubs, get drinks on the house, and stand there with his fellow models looking good. The only down side, he tells me, is that the conversation amongst them isn't that exhilirating. A small price to pay, I say.

as time goes by

2008-11-11T03:03:00.002Z

A few people have mentioned how late (or early!) I write my posts, which slightly puzzled me, and I've just figured out. I began this blog in the UK, and so it registered me to UK time. Hence, I'm writing this post at 10.08pm but if you look below it will probably say 3.08 am or something like that. If not, I'm staying up much later than I thought!

a little bit more on love

2008-11-10T04:10:00.002Z

I thought I'd write a little bit more about the quote from Karl Rahner, partly in response to Colin's comment. Rahner's idea of love is based on the basic structure of human existence. To use a very simple example, if I want to perceive the cup sitting on my desk, I have to open my eyes and focus on that cup. Whatever thought of self-awareness I may have had is displaced as the thought content of 'that cup' fills my mind. The structure of this movement from self-focus to focus on an external object requires a certain 'openness' toward the world. The root of Rahner's idea is that this openness is basic to human existence - we are designed with the purpose of being open to the world. Therefore the person who is open, more fully realises their humanity than the person who closes themselves from the world. This is true at the basic level of looking at a cup, or the more complex level of other persons. When perceiving inanimate objects, our openness operates at a low level because the object only makes a visual (or aural, or auditory) demand on us. The object is static and able to be controlled and manipulated by us. However a human person, unlike a cup, has their own goals and aims, and thus our openness to them works at a deeper level because their subjecthood will make all sorts of other - moral - demands on us. Hence the love of neighbour is the fullest form of humanity because it is the action that maximally realises the openness required by the fundamental orientation of human beings to the external world. The 'Thou' is the formal idea of the other, of the external, of the 'not me'. Insofar as human persons have two basic thoughts - the thought of self, and the thought of the other - the other translates into other "I's". And so the 'Thou' is perhaps equated formally with other people in distinction from oneself, but the Thou is never equated with 'us' as in "us humans". Now obviously, the most different 'other' is the Creator himself. While all other created things seem very different, they all share this - that they all instantiate created being. Yet God is not created, and his being is fundamentally different from ours, and therefore God stands as the most 'Other' that calls forth the most radical openness that calls us not merely to forget ourselves, but to die, that we may gain life.

...on love

2008-11-06T02:08:00.004Z

Here's an extract from an article I read for my theology and spirituality class. It's by Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. VI, p. 242.

“When we say that a self-understanding of man takes place in the act of loving communication with the Thou, so that everything else is a moment, presupposition, initial stage or result of this, then we also say of course eo ipso and conversely that the whole incalculable mystery of man is contained and exercised in this act of love of neighbour; it means that all anthropological statements must also be read as statements about that love which is not merely a ‘regional’ happening in the life of man but is the whole of himself in which alone he possesses himself completely… It would be necessary to show by a descriptive phenomenology of love, responsibility, loyalty, venture, and of the unfinished and eternal quality inherent in love, what breadths and depths are implied by love of the Thou, how man really experiences in it who he is, how the ‘no’ to it imprisons the whole man within the deadly lonely damnation of self-created absurdity, how the totality of reality, which freely gives itself and is accepted and understood as the blessed incomprehensibility, opens itself only if man opens himself radically in the act of love and entrusts himself to this totality."

and the winner is...

2008-11-06T01:38:00.003Z

Barak Obama. And my congratulations too. I may not be an American, but I and many others - indeed, most citizens of the world - have some stake in the American election. And in light of that, I'm happy that Obama won. I think he is the right person for the current domestic and world situation, and more than that he inspires hope merely by his presence. Some may decrie this as an example of politics being all about 'image' and I too share those concerns. However, human beings are not rational. We make many of our decisions based on emotion, and intuitions about the future. Look at the stock market; the fluctuations are all caused by rumours of this or that person that may or may not take over this company or sell this asset or what have you. Parties involved in intractable situations in the Middle East or Ex-Soviet bloc may perhaps see just enough hope after this election that they would come out from behind their 'fences' and talk with generosity of spirit. This may seem like utopianism, but as Obama was giving his speech I rememberd all the things I had seen in my lifetime - in particular watching the Berlin wall come down on tv with my parents, and when I stayed up watching the votes come in for the Northern Ireland power sharing agreement. Change is possible.

I watched the victory speech at a friend's house in Harlem, and saw from the window thousands of white Columbia University students walking up Broadway Avenue into Harlem to gather with their black and latino brothers and sisters to celebrate the victory of America's first black president. Now, foreign observers may be tempted toward indifference to this achievement - what's the big deal? But that betrays a misunderstanding about just how deep racial tension goes in America. A black friend of mine from school cast his vote across the road, at the Riverside Church polling station, the same church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached his sermon against the Vietnam war, and which was probably the tipping point that brought about his assassination. People forget that the Civil Rights movement was barely one generation away - this sermon was preached in 1967, just 14 years before my own birth. And so the bitter history of struggle for peace - racial and foreign - is still on the surface of the American conscience, and the symbolic and actual victory of Obama is a joyful message of new possibilities.

elections

2008-11-04T04:31:00.002Z

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.
- George Eliot

I suppose all the world is watching America today. It's almost Tuesday morning as I write this and New York is abuzz with a sense of excitement at the possibility of an Obama victory, mixed with a sizable dollop of fear that just like '04 the dreaded thing will happen and the Republicans will pip them at the post again. It's interesting as an impartial observer to watch the emotional nail-biting, and listen in to impassioned conversations in cafes extolling the virtues of whichever candidate and denoucing the folly of the opponent. I think it's a very important election, but at the same time I share the concern of those in the know that even if Obama wins, there are some things that are ingrained in American foreign and domestic policy that won't change unless the populace makes serious, informed, and concerted efforts to engage their congressional representatives.

In a lament for US politics, I provide a link to a charming, if melancholic, song.
My Dear Country

screenings and readings and hearings

2008-11-03T17:58:00.004Z

Tonight I'm going to a preview screening of a film called 'Ordinary Radicals' which is being screened at a church, and the director will be answering questions afterward. It's about Christians that move into run-down neighbourhoods, live communally in large houses, and do all sorts of social justice stuff in the neighbourhood. I'm going with Nate, and we hope to be on time because a few weeks ago we went to the book launch for "Evangelical does not equal Republican or Democrat" but missed our stop on the L train and went all the way out to Brooklyn! We were about 20 minutes late, and would like to avoid such a situation again.

Then on Thursday I'm going to see the Smashing Pumpkins. I'll leave it at that. Yes, you should be feeling jealous right now.

halloween

2008-10-31T22:55:00.002Z

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

2008-10-28T05:29:00.003Z

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

2008-10-28T05:26:00.002Z

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

2008-10-24T00:48:00.002Z

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

2008-10-20T21:12:00.002Z

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

2008-10-11T01:28:00.003Z

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...

2008-10-11T01:21:00.002Z

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

2008-10-08T03:46:00.004Z

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

2008-10-03T20:56:00.002Z

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.

Turner

2008-09-23T02:54:00.003Z

One of the best things about New York is the sheer abundnce of art. There are several major galleries here, the two most important being the 'MOMA' or Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The latter has just finished showing a J.W.M. Turner retrospective. Turner is one of my favourite artists, a British painter who at the time of his exhibitions was often panned by his critics because his work involved large swathes of colour, that represented landscape scenes but weren't very detailed. It was assumed that what he was doing was just splashing a few colours on without much skill. However, his reputation was made by the approval and high praise of John Ruskin who appreciated Turner's eye for Nature, and also his ability to evoke so much emotion with his use of colour. Perhaps his most famous paintings are of the Houses of Parliament burning...but here is my favourite, Fishermen at Sea.

sprechen Sie deutsches?

2008-09-23T01:07:00.002Z

It's 9.12pm and I have just returned from a 2 hour German lesson. It's a crash course that is designed to enable one to read German as soon as possible. I can't speak it, and certainly don't know any words that I might want to use in polite conversation, but I do know how to identify the verb, noun, subject, predicates, adjectives, adverbs, and objects of a German sentence. It's all about the formal structure, and how to use a dictionary to translate a sentence as quickly and efficiently as possible. We went in at the deep end, and translated 10 sentences during the first class (two weeks ago). I must say, it's one the most mentally exhausting things one can do...even more so for my Japanese friend! Though I have most pity for a girl in my class, in the first of a five-year PhD program, who has to have 6 languages..Greek, Hebrew, French, German, Aramaic, and Akkadian. She's doing the German class now, and has the last two still to come! Well, I'm going to go and sit up on the roof for 30 mins with a friend, before returning to my room to read for another 2 hours on politics and faith...oh the joy.

denial

2008-09-22T15:56:00.002Z

after 4 weeks it's finally time to face the music...and put a wash on. those whom i have lived with will know this is not a joke.

concerning pie in the sky

2008-09-20T22:36:00.002Z

I'm taking 4 classes this semester for credit, and I'm also auditing a class, which means I sit in the class and listen to the discussions - possibly contributing - but I don't need to do any of the required reading or assignments. It's a way of taking a course that you're interested in, without the workload. The class I'm auditing is 'Liberation Theology and Pentecostalism' and it focuses mainly on the parallel histories of them in Latin America where they have both made significant achievements. During one discussion we were considering common stereotypes, and thinking about how accurate they really were. A frequent caricature of Pentecostals, is that they are other-worldly and can't wait to get out of here and in to heaven. And the strange thing is that looking at their doctrine, this is a rather accurate characterisation of Pentecostals. But when one looks at their practice, another picture develops. While Pentecostals often informally and formally speak the language of escapism, and are accused of being "pie in the sky" Christians, their actions tell another story because when a friend is sick they pray for them, and when someone needs a job they pray. They encourage one another to have faith that things at work will change, family relationships will change, etc. etc. This is a prime example of the gap (well noted by sociologists) between theory and practice. The theory of Pentecostals may suggest disengagement from the world, but their practice says differently. Liberals on the other hand, tend to speak the theory of social engagement, but often that's all they do - speak - and in such unrealistic utopian ideals that the question becomes legitimate: who's faith is really pie in the sky?

crossing the road

2008-09-19T15:55:00.002Z

As you may or may not have heard, New York has a lot of people and a lot of cars, all cramming themselves into the same tiny bit of land called Manhattan Island. To manage these competing interests, there are lights that tell cars to stop or go, and lights to tell people to stop or go..the problem is, the lights don't always agree. Most of the junctions are t-junctions because avenues in New York run north-south and streets run east-west, in a grid. The problem is when your walking up a large avenue that runs north-south. If you approach an intersecting east-west street your crossing sign may have a 'man' that is lit up in white light and shows a walking stance. This means it's now safe to walk...but the car coming down that north-south avenue (on the right hand side of the road obviously) also has a green light, and may freely turn right....and into the street you're meant to be crossing safely! What happens is that, as the car approachs the crossing they make the same necessary reduction in speed that they would anyway, and the rule is that cars may proceed if the crossing is clear. Of course, for someone from England to see a car not stopping, but swinging around the corner toward you, you stop - they don't give way in the UK (sounds like a rhyming motto, huh?). For the first two weeks, I kept stopping, cautious, thinking 'why on earth is that guy coming toward me?!' And I was also confused, cause the light was telling me to walk - in front of that! But anyway, the drivers are actually quite well trained here, and surprisingly willing to stop...so much so, that when the white 'walk' light comes on I now cross without looking. And I also cross without looking when the man goes to a red hand that flashes - the equivalent of an orange light. And I also cross without looking when the hand stops flashing - a red light. It just seems to me that cars are so willing to stop, that it's so easy for everyone to just cross, often without looking. That's how you can tell a real New Yorker. And people never run. In England, one often jogs a little to get out the way. Not here. People just slowly amble across, not caring whether the car has to wait or not. Brilliant.

harlem, sushi, karaoke

2008-09-13T20:17:00.002Z

The title pretty much says it all - tonight I'm going to a party in Harlem for all the people at church that live in the Harlem area...it's nice to know who you can call on when you lock yourself out, or need to borrow a cup of brown sugar. Then, I'm heading downtown to the East Village to a sushi bar with friends from school where we'll eat raw fish, before heading on to a karaoke bar. I've been practising 'Easy' all morning in the shower.

Catching Up!

2008-09-13T15:38:00.002Z

Hi everyone...I sincerely apologise for my lack of correspondence. It's the same old story. I was rather busy during the first two weeks of school, and each time I got back to my room at night I would think 'Oh no, I don't have the energy to write all that up!' - but of course the longer I went, the more things I had to write about, and the more reluctant I became to take the plunge and actually document things. So here I am, my first free Saturday morning. I have a bowl of cereal next to me, and I'm going to try to do a catch-up post that will fill you in.

Firstly, there is a difference in blog writing between fact telling and analysis. I can easily write blog posts that just re-tell the facts of where I've been and what I've done - but I like to get into more detailed discussions and get under the skin of people and places. Unfortunately, that would take a long time to do, so this post will be more fact-telling than anything else.

Baseball game
One of the first memorable moments I had in New York was going to a baseball game couple of Fridays ago - August 29th to be exact. It was a third-dvision game between the Staten Island Yankees (Staten Island is a borough of New York City) and some other team...the Tri-City Cats or something ridiculous like that. The game itslef had relatively few moments of excitement, but hanging out with a bunch of people from the New York city church was great, plus it was all-you-can-eat hotdogs and cola, a godsend for cash strapped graduate students! Strangely though, they started the game by asking people to take off their hats for the singing of the American anthem. After the game there was a really great fireworks show, and the singing of 'God Bless America' or something like that. These were the features of America I found so amusing..such an obvious and often-hyped patriotism. They really really like clapping and cheering for things in a way that leaves me slightly puzzled and awkward..take for instance the Republican and Democratic national conventions. I can't imagine any British politician filling an 80,000 seat stadium with adoring voters, entering the stage to pop music blasts, and then having balloons released while people cheered their name and waved flags. Winston would roll over in his grave.

Manhattan skyline
On my first Saturday in New York, someone from the college lead a tour group over to Brooklyn. We took the subway to the bottom of Manhattan and then walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, which took about 20-30 mins...it was such a lovely walk over, and the sun has been shining over here, which is more than I can say for England! Once we reached the other side, we went to this really famous pizzeria called "Grimaldi's" which we had to wait in line for outside the shop, ordered ours to take out, and had to come back 1 hour later to pick them up!! But I must admit, they were the best slices I had ever tasted, and well worth the wait. We ate them down by the waters edge, and sitting at the tables in Brooklyn, we could look right across at lower Manhattan. It had been a cloudless day, and so as the sun set, there was a spectrum of beaufitul shades of orange to yellow, to green and blue, and finally purple. When everything had at last turned black, the dots of light shining out from office sky-scrapers formed the incandescent pattern that is the most famous skyline in the world...and I must say, office blocks and lights have never looked so glorious. It truly is a sight to behold and one that I suspect I will not tire of quickly.

Church retreat
On the second weekend I was here, I went away for a retreat with the people from New York Church International, (hereafter 'the church' which is much easier to write). We drove down from New York on Friday afternoon and took about two hours to get to Pennsylvania, right on the Delaware River. The first night there was the initial get-together with some worship and then Deryck (the guy leading the church) spoke briefly about the purpose for the retreat etc. Then we went up to the top of a small hill-rise and made a bonfire, roasted marshmalolows, and made 'smores' - a particularly American treat of two crackers with block of Hershey's chocolate and roasted mallows in the middle. Super good! I had brought a book along with me to read, but I never got a chance as we were pretty busy everyday..and I spent almost all the free time on Saturday playing basketball and soccer in the gym because it was lashing down outside. All in all, a top weekend, and I made some great friends.

Fashion week
So, it's been Fashion Week here in New York and the world's best designers have been here, showing off their latest wares. Nothing remotely to do with me..normally...but this is New York, and a friend of a friend is managing a concession stand giving away a new brand of chocolate biscuit called 'Lu'. So, he has a bunch of passes, the kind you put around your neck, like a lanyard, with a entry pass hanging from it. He went out the back door, handed me and Nate (a friend from college) the passes, and we walked around the front and into the last day of the Fashion Week exhibition. Inside are a few Mercedes cars on display, a spot demonstrating the latest iGoolge page etc. Plus there is a cafe making free coffees, a fridge with free water, a stand giving away free Haviana flip-flops...you get the 'free' idea. So we got some coffe, and hung around by the cafe area, shared a table with someone from PR company who asked if we were film crew. Thanks for the compliment we said! (i.e. we looked a bit rough, like we weren't fashionistas). And basically that's how the afternoon went, walking around, drinking free drinks, and making conversation with random people. We talked with two girls whose job it was to undress the models and then re-dress them during runway shows. They were actually really nice, and people kept saying to us 'wow, you guys are so funny' and we theorised that everyone in the fashion industry is so insecure and/or stuck up that people with nothing to prove must seem rather refreshing! Anway, we also got talking to the two girls running the Mercedes stand (notice a pattern there?) and they would come over to say hi when they were on a break or something. This proved to be a useful contact, because as the day came to a close, they sneaked us in to the last runway show of the day by Ralph Rucci. Apparently he's really good. The clothes seemed quite good, but then again I'm the last person to ask, so we'll skip over that bit and come to the interesting bit. Nate has a long-last auntie who he told me lived in Manhattan and was right into the fashion scene and knew everyone. He was wondering aloud about the fact she might be here, and as we were filing out of the runway show he sees her and calls out 'Jane!'. She hears her name, and starts talking with him about the show but doesn't realise for 2 or 3 mins that it's her nephew. Then she clicks when he tells her he's at Columbia, and she stops, then starts crying and hugging him, and I'm standing there, smiling to Donna Karen as she walks by and wonders what all the fuss is about. Only in New York.

(okay, okay, I didn't really smile at Donna Karen..I couldn't tell you if I saw her. But she was there in the show, with all the other luminaries and possibly did see us on the way out)

Arrival

2008-08-26T19:33:00.004Z

Just so everyone knows, I arrived safe and sound in New York and have settled in well. There is a really great bunch of people here, and on the first night a few of us got together and went to a local restaurant, and then afterward went up on to the roof of the college where there are few tables and chairs awash in ambient lighting, and offering beautiful views of the city. A few people sat around strumming guitars and singing original songs which were really funny, and we told jokes and stories of home til midnight then all went to bed. Nice way to start the year if you ask me. Here's a photo of the view from my window onto Broadway Avenue.

Graduation

2008-08-04T13:30:00.002Z

Well, I finally managed to graduate. Not that it was that hard. Everyone assumed I worked really hard to get such good grades, that I slogged it out...but to be honest, I rather enjoyed the whole thing, and often in my mind it feels like I didn't do any work at all. And then I remember writing essays up at 2am. Yeah, I worked hard.