Was P.D. James on to something? There’s a shortage of British sperm and egg donations.
Update 2016: Now a fertility clinic is importing sperm and eggs from Ukraine to make up for what they lack in the UK.
John Calvin at 500
July 10, 2009, is the 500th celebration of the birth of John Calvin (also the second annual Hug a Calvinist Day). Calvin gave the people of God an understand of Scripture they could not get from their church leaders and tore down the idea that life was divided between sacred and secular living. Many of his day held the belief that vulgar living, by which I mean common living like milking cows, raising children, trading in the market, and building your home, is not interesting to God. The Lord of creation is only concerned with his worship, prayer, giving to his church, and service in his name. But this distinction is not a true one, and understanding Scripture in one’s first language helps clarify that.
Of course, Martin Luther helped clarify this too.
But in honor of Calvin’s birthday, you can listen to interviews and browse the blogs for tributes. If you have a post on Calvin on your blog today, give us link in the thread.
Here’s an interesting article from the BBC: “Hard work and frugality, the values espoused by Calvinism, are back in fashion as people reassess their lives because of the economic crisis.” And here’s a video on how Calvin’s teaching has influenced World magazine.
David’s palace uncovered?
In what could be a severe blow to recent critics who have claimed that “Jerusalem is not a Jewish city” and “David never existed,” a Jewish archaeologist has (on the basis of a biblical clue) found what looks very much like David’s palace on a hill overlooking the original Jebusite city site.
But Mazar always suspected that the palace was outside the original city, and cites the Bible to prove it. When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed, they went on the attack to apprehend him. This occurred after he conquered the Fortress of Zion, which was the actual nucleus of the city, and built his palace. The Bible says that David heard about it and “descended to the fortress,” (2-Samuel 5:17), implying that he went down from his palace, which was higher up on the mountain than the citadel/city.
Mazar told Aish.com: “I always asked myself: Down from where? It must have been from his palace on top of the hill, outside the original Jebusite city.”
Mazar says she was confident in her assessment of where the palace would be. What she discovered was a section of massive wall running about 100 feet from west to east along the length of the excavation (underneath what until this summer was the Ir David Visitors Center), and ending with a right-angle corner that turns south and implies a very large building.
Tip: Dr. Gene Edward Veith.
Me, the moocher
Annie Frisbie, the Superfast Reader, sends me information about a scheme called BookMooch, a simple book exchange program. After joining, you list the books you want to give away on the site, send them to someone who asks for them (for which you get points), and then use your points to order books from other people.
Sounds like a conspiracy to take money out of writers’ pockets, say I.
You know, it’s one of the ironies of life. Writers depend on the sale of new books to make a living. We only get paid for that first sale. When I shop at Half Price Books (as I do more than anywhere else), and buy used books, I’m not showing solidarity with my comrades in labor, but profiting only the carrion birds of the bookstore.
However, as a midlist author, I just don’t have a lot of money to spend on new books (which are, I think, generally overpriced). Thus do I cut mine own economic throat.
A friend just told me she found a signed copy of The Year of the Warrior in a used bookstore.
I don’t really seriously imagine that everybody who’s bought a book from me at a Viking event, and got it autographed, fell in love with it and wouldn’t be parted from it.
But it still rankles.
Take physic, pomp!
“The Berserking”
Dale Nelson sends this link, to an article from the London Telegraph about James MacMillan, an “accessible” contemporary composer who is a devout Catholic, and who has written a piano concerto called “The Berserking.”
The Archive of the covenant
Today I was going through some stuff in our Archives. A pastor had donated some material he’d accumulated in researching a book a few years ago, and I’d been letting it sit. Today, I decided, I will start putting it in some kind of order.
Archiving is a very odd occupation, and one for which (I might mention) I have no formal training. Do I catalog a pamphlet as a book, or file it as a document? How do I organize my document files? It appears the previous librarians weren’t sure either, so I can’t even refer to their precedents most of the time.
I decided to catalog the Christmas annuals as books. Our predecessor church body published a Christmas annual, and (God bless ’em) operated with such humility that they didn’t even include publishing information in many of them (no bragging from the editors!). One issue didn’t even contain any mention anywhere of what year it was for. I had to work it out deductively, and I’m not entirely sure I got the right answer. Continue reading The Archive of the covenant
The Meat of Allegory
Frank suggests The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is “a better work of apologetics than Mere Christianity” because it is allegory.
Limericks limited
During the last couple days, as some of you know, I’ve posted limericks on my Facebook page. I’ve done this because I couldn’t think of a mortal thing to say about my life that could possibly be of interest to anyone.
I hasten to add that I’m talking clean limericks here. My favorite limericks come from a collection of light verse that was in my childhood home (all decent). I did not learn about the scrofulous mass of the genre until I was a grown-up. According to Wikipedia, the experts say that “the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene.” I have no standing to challenge the experts, but the limericks I like are the ones that are clean and clever. Some marvelous effects have been achieved by geniuses (some of them anonymous) who used the form to create what seems to me transcendent nonsense. (I do not include Edward Lear in this group. I hate Lear’s limericks. His technique of repeating the first-line rhyme in the final line, in my opinion, destroys the very things that make limericks wonderful.)
Continue reading Limericks limitedDirty Politics
Talk something through with me. Why don’t conservatives fight dirty with liberals like they do with us (generally speaking)? Many have argued that we should fight fire with fire. An essay in the National Review argues this point, saying liberals don’t care about anything but political power and will argue any means, however illogical, to achieve their desired ends. So do you believe that and do you think conservatives should return evil for evil as it were? If not, why not?
Reading Narrative
Writers of short fiction may want to look into a notable online magazine, Narrative.