Thomas Jodziewicz writes about Frederick Douglas’ education into freedom. “Our popular culture promotes the injurious fiction,” he says, “that the world is all about me, myself, and my ephemeral needs, a temptation that American culture has confronted for a long time. But a true liberal arts education can provide an escape from such alienation and loneliness—and boredom. A true liberal education is a way to discover that you are not alone.”
Friday blather
I had an e-mail at work from Dr. John Eidsmoe yesterday. He was looking for the documentary source of a quotation from Luther that most of us have read more than once (I first saw it in Francis Schaeffer’s work):
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
John couldn’t find it, and he thought maybe I could help (not as hopeful a thought as he imagined). Still, I attacked our complete edition of Luther and its index, and found precisely nothing.
So I went online, and finally found this interesting discussion.
There’s a lot of back-and-forth in comments, but the upshot seems to be that the quotation doesn’t actually come from Luther (though he said something different on the same lines), but from a 19th Century novel called Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family, by Elizabeth Rundle Charles. Continue reading Friday blather
Life by Hemingway
I don’t know much about Ernest Hemingway, despite my desire to read his work. The fact that he killed himself in a type of defiance of God colors everything I read about him. But Brett has taken up Hemingway’s ideas and made several motivational poster images in his most recent post, and they’re worth browsing. I love the top photo.
In the Secret
Sherry writes about secret places in stories. I enjoy these places too. I’ve always loved the idea of a secret room in a large house. Of course, I’d want to go into it often–the kids would too–so the secret or secluded part of being in the room would wear out soon. But true stories like this one of a man finding a hidden room while renovating a 120-year-old house are so cool–unless you balance them with stories about hidden rooms with notes (“I owned this house for a short while, and it was discovered to have a serious mold problem.”).
What is this strange, unaccustomed feeling?
Yesterday I had all sorts of stuff to blog about. Today I’m pretty dry.
The only unusual thing about my life right now (aside from its usual unusualness) is that I feel pretty good.
Years back, I used to jog. I was never a hard core runner, though there was a time when I might have become one. I’d gotten my running up to four miles at a time, and was enjoying it. Then I blew out my knee (due to my own stupidity), which limited me to two miles a day ever after. And eventually I couldn’t even do that anymore.
After a long hiatus (and gaining back a lot of weight I’d kept at bay for fifteen years), I took up walking a few years back, taking half hour walks instead of twenty minute runs. It was better than nothing, but there was very little pleasure in it, and sloughing off was easy. I didn’t know why.
But lately, out of desperation to improve my condition, I started lifting some very light weights (which I bought back when I was running) while doing the walks.
And lo, I discovered what I’d been missing all these years. I was missing pushing it. I was missing actually having a workout that took effort. Now the burn is back, and I feel better than I have in years.
Sorry to break out of the Lars Walker character you know and have come to expect. I’m sure I’ll be griping about something again soon.
If It Was Made by Slaves, Would You Buy it?
As I understand it, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is required by Congress (Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act (TVPA) of 2005) to list the goods produced by forced labor or child labor and the countries which produced those things. At the end of last year, Congress told the DOL to issue that list by the end of 2009 (William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008). Change.org and Polaris Project are asking us to write the DOL to encourage it to make it’s deadline.
I’d think a list like this would be very difficult to compile, even if you did not have businesses arguing against it (which I assume some lobbyist or two is actually doing). There was an informational meeting held on May 28, 2008. Perhaps now, almost five years later, the DOL is ready to finger the companies and products made in unjust conditions. You can join the effort here.
Christ-Centered Worship
“Christ-Centered Worship calls people to go beyond ‘contemporary worship’ without being polemical in spirit. It takes historic worship traditions very seriously but uses the gospel itself as the way to critique and design orders of worship. It is full, balanced, and extremely practical. This will now be the first book I give people–or turn to myself–on the practice of understanding, planning, and leading in corporate worship.”–Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church; author of The Reason for God
“Never an Unfree Man”
An essay I wrote recently, called “Never an Unfree Man,” about Viking Norway and the (possible) roots of Free Lutheranism (the brand to which I adhere), has been posted online by my publisher, here.
In other news, Nordskog reports that they’ve ordered a second printing of West Oversea.
Abandoned book review: Viking: Odinn’s Child, by Tim Severin
There was a time when I made it a point of honor to finish every book of fiction I started. As I’ve aged I’ve grown more surly and impatient, and nowadays if a book bores or offends me, I toss it away. Life’s too short. I’ve got stuff I need to read.
So I’m going to do a new thing here. I’m going to post a biased review of a book to which I may not have given a fair chance.
I’d had Tim Severin’s Viking trilogy recommended to me, and I do try to keep up, to some degree, with my competition in the Viking novels field. I looked forward to the book. Severin is the author of The Brendan Voyage, an account of his own Atlantic voyage in a leather coracle, in emulation of St. Brendan, a book I read, enjoyed, and profited from.
But I got up to page 74 of Viking: Odinn’s Child and just couldn’t take it any further. There were two reasons, stylistic and ideological. I’ll start with the stylistic, so that anyone who doesn’t care about my religious views can just read this part and drop the review, as I dropped the book. Continue reading Abandoned book review: Viking: Odinn’s Child, by Tim Severin
Words that don’t mean what we think they mean
In news reports and discussion of the death today of Sen. Edward Kennedy, I keep hearing references to the “Kennedy family tragedies.” This might suggest to some people that the death of Sen. Kennedy is also a tragedy. It is not. (Please understand that I don’t mean to suggest it’s not sad. I mean it doesn’t meet either the ancient or the modern definitions of “tragedy.”)
The ancient definition of tragedy was, “The story of the violent and premature death of a great man, which he brings upon himself through some flaw in his character.”
The modern definition is, “An early or untimely death marked by a notable loss of human potential.”
Sen. Kennedy’s life fulfills neither of these criteria.
Sen. Kennedy died at an advanced age, fabulously wealthy and one of the most powerful people in the world. Whatever the indiscretions and sins of his life, he managed to avoid suffering almost any temporal consequences for them.
Almost the diametric opposite of tragedy.