Dr. Judith Hardanger-Hansen writes again, in another column by me over at the American Spectator Online today.
Saex talk
We got a little rain today (and that’s a good thing), but it was just a little. When I got home, the evidence suggested that we’d gotten a little more right here. Even better. And the skies were full of dark clouds. I took my afternoon walk on the theory that my vulnerability would prove an irresistible temptation to the heavens, but it didn’t work (could it be that the universe isn’t specifically engineered to frustrate me? This could crush my entire paradigm!).
But when I sat down to start this post it was raining again. A tentative, Avoidant rain, unsure of its welcome. I didn’t have much hope of it, but lo, it continues, even unto this minute.
The weekend went OK. I didn’t have anyplace to go, so I washed and waxed Mrs. Hermanson and did some repair and staining on the latticework underneath my screen porch.
My treat was the arrival of this object:
This is a Viking saex, hand-made for me by author and knifemaker Michael Z. Williamson. If you’re wondering why a guy who’s been hinting at financial constraints throws away money on things like this, the answer is that I ordered and paid for it a couple years ago, when I was flush, and it’s been delayed for various reasons. So this was a long-awaited pleasure.
I posted about saexes (or seaxes, or saxes, or saekses, ad infinitum) a while back, when I made a sheath for the back-up saex I’d bought for live steel. This knife is not for live steel. This one is fully sharp. Even Crocodile Dundee, I believe, would concede that this is a knife. It’s 16 ½” long.
If you look closely you can see Viking runes inlaid in the side of the blade. These spell out (in Old Norse) a line from the poem, Bjarkamál: “Breast to breast the eagles shall claw each other.” The Bjarkamál was a very popular war poem in the Viking Age. One of King (St.) Olaf’s poets sang it before the Battle of Stiklestad, and this particular line was nearly the last words of Erling Skjalgsson, hero of The Year of the Warrior.
The saex was one of the most common, and prized, weapons in the Dark Ages, and continued to be so long after the Viking Age had passed. It has been suggested that possession of this weapon was restricted to free men, and was a mark of freedom—the Saxons took their name from the weapon. Most men couldn’t afford to invest valuable steel in swords which had no practical use outside of warfare. But every free man had one of these, useable as a machete, a butcher knife and an offensive weapon.
It’s still raining, very lightly. This would be perfect if it just lingered and lingered. I don’t think that’s in the forecast, though. But we’ll take what we can get.
Church Music
Point out the weaknesses in some, maybe most, praise music sung in churches today and what happens? A long rant-fest.
“‘Lord to give you up I’d be a fool’ almost literally gag-making”
“the lyrics of praise music is meaningless pop gestures”
“As the character in the Simpsons said, you can turn praise music into a love song merely by changing ‘Jesus’ to ‘Baby.'”
“Most “praise music” stinks. Use the Psalter or use the psalms of David in meter.”
“I remember the whole ‘rock music is evil’ debate. The same debate happens every time a new music genre enters the Christian space”
Advice for Summer
How to Fend Off a Shark, from the guys who wrote the guide to surviving worst case scenarios. In short, hit the shark back.
A Gorgeous Comedy of Classes
Yesterday, my wife and I saw Pixar’s Ratatouille on a digital screen at the Rave Theater in East Ridge. It was fantastic, hilarious, and heartening. The director describes it as a story about achieving impossible dreams, and maybe that’s the idea I was smiling so much about afterward, but I worded it differently. A food critic says that though everyone cannot be a great artist, a great artist can come from anywhere. As the story’s featured cookbook claims, “Anyone can cook.” That means you, especially if you see our society or select industries against you.
I heard an interview this week with a woman who said that while studying drama at Harvard in the ’70s she was encouraged to pursue children’s theater, “because women can’t direct theater.” Neither she nor the NPR interviewer wanted to believe such an idea was common at Harvard in those days. But that idea is everywhere, is it not? Someone may tell you that being the type of person you are prevents you from accomplishing your goal, but it ain’t necessarily so.
Dream your impossible dream. Work on it no matter what the chances of success, and do it all to the glory of your Lord and Savior. You may be a great artist–no matter who you are. You won’t find out unless you try.
A day too good to criticize
Just about a perfect day today. The temperature was precisely right for my personal comfort—which means it would probably be a little warm for most people. I’m a cold-blooded beast. The thermometer usually reads about 98.2 when the nurse pulls it from my mouth and reads it. I blame this condition for my inability to endure cold. When my brothers are thumping their chests and saying, “Isn’t this great? It’s so bracing!” I’m cupping my hands over my ears to keep them warm (cupping them very carefully, though. Touching them too forcefully might shatter them like cheap plastic cups from a convenience store pop machine).
We could use some rain, but if it were raining it wouldn’t be a perfect day, would it? “Seek not contrary pleasures,” said Dr. Johnson.
One disappointment I’ve suffered during my afternoon walks down to Crystal Lake and back has been the lack of girls in bikinis sunning themselves along the shore. Crystal Lake has been sorely deficient in the sunbathing girls department. More often the shore has been encircled by an unbroken ring of Hmong people, all of them with fishing poles, pulling sunfish 2 centimeters long out of the water for supper.
But today that was remedied. I didn’t get an ideal look at the girl (no doubt that was her intention) as she was lying on a fairly steep slope that runs down from the street to the water’s edge, but she seemed to be not ugly, and she was in a bikini.
Maybe it’ll be a good weekend.
There was another form of beauty too—butterflies. I suppose it’s unmanly of me, but I love butterflies. They seem to me an entirely useless addition to the environment. I’m sure their ecological niche could have been filled by something brown that looked like one of the more undistinguished moths. But God gave us flowers that flew, just as a treat.
That’s how I think of butterflies. They’re a gift. A grace note. A cherry on top of the sundae of summer.
Have a good weekend.
Don’t Bother Getting Published
“I’ve lost count of the number of emails I get asking for advice on how to get published. My initial reaction is ‘Why bother?’ when being unpublished is such fun and so satisfying,” writes Beth Webb. “Getting published by a mainstream company is great, but in all honesty, how many of us can really afford to give up the day job, even when we’ve signed that contract? Such a long, heartbreaking haul for what? The joy of writing should be just that – the writing.”
There’s something to this, but I don’t what. (via Books, Inq.)
Turn Off the News and Don’t Slug Your Barber
If you find yourself frustrated with politics or elections this year or next, I have two recommendations for you. First, turn off the news for a week. Sure the earth will probably burn at the poles because you aren’t staying informed, but that’s a risk you should take for your peace of mind. Turning off the news, especially TV news, will help you get your mind off bothersome things you can’t control and allow you to worry about personal things you can’t control. That’s called relaxation.
Second, read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “The Barber.” It’s a humorous little tale about a professor who feels compelled to argue politics with his thick-headed barber. Though the professor calls himself a liberal, I think the story will appeal to anyone who believes he has good reasons on his side and the opposition is all cliché.
I should say upfront I’m not sure of O’Connor’s main point in this story. You could easily take away the idea that arguing politics with anyone is worthless, as one character recommends, but I’m not willing to stop there. The professor’s passion and humiliation seem to better address the idea that it’s worthless to argue with some people. The barber is clearly a fool, and I’m sure O’Connor was familiar with the Proverbs on fools.
A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain,
but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.
Leave the presence of a fool,
for there you do not meet words of knowledge.
The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way,
but the folly of fools is deceiving. (Proverbs 14:6-8 ESV)
It may be just the story to entertain you when you’re frustrated with candidates and commenters, but whatever your position on the issues this year and no matter what your barber says to you, don’t sock him in the face, okay? As a great politician once said, it wouldn’t be prudent.
Focus on Character
If Flannery had a blog, she might post a bit of writing advice on occasion.
You would probably do just as well to get that plot business out of your head and start simply with a character or anything that you can make come alive…Wouldn’t it be better for you to discover a meaning in what you write rather than to impose one? Nothing you write will lack meaning because the meaning is in you.
It’s called Dispatches from Outland
Roy Jacobsen, over at Dispatches from Outland, Dispatches from Outland, Dispatches from Outland (I repeat it three times in penance for getting it wrong last night) succumbed to my passive-aggressive hint and posted the pictures of me this morning, here.
He mentioned it in the comments on my last post, but I’m saying it out here in the sunlight to make sure YOU NOTICE IT.
Man, I love attention. That might surprise some people, because I make a fetish of not calling attention to myself or promoting myself, but all the time I’m trying to find oblique ways to get that notice, either by some achievement or other, or by passive aggression.
So thanks, Roy, for being my enabler.
(The blog is called Dispatches from Outland.)
So, the immigration bill went down in flames.
I never knew what to think about that issue. Most of the talk shows are against it, but when Michael Medved came on to defend it, I thought he made a lot of sense too. So I was utterly at sea, and not sure enough of any position to badger my senator.
But here’s what I do think.
I think there’s a movement (not a conspiracy. No council of plutocrats is strategizing in a secret room. It’s more of a state of mind abroad in the land) that wants America to be anything but what it has been in the past.
The people who hold this view love America, but they love it in their own way. They love America the way parents love a drug-addicted teenager—“You’ll always be our son and we’ll always love you, but you have to clean up your act.”
These people don’t love America’s origins. They don’t love its history. They don’t love its traditions (especially its religion).
What they love about America is what they see as its potential to become something they could be proud of.
Because they hate America’s history and traditions, they see no reason why anyone should be expected to go through a regularized naturalization process, to learn about America. Why learn about something we’re going to erase anyway?
Because they hate America’s culture, they don’t want immigrants to assimilate. They want to see Balcanization—a country built up of thousands of ethnic enclaves, peopled by folks who can’t communicate with one another, because there’s no common language.
Because they’re ashamed of America’s history, they want to enable (not cause, but open the door to) the partition of America, so that the Old Southwest either goes back to Mexico or becomes an independent Hispanic nation.
I think they lost a fight today, but they win a little by carrying on the status quo too. So I’m not celebrating.
You know what I see for the future (putting on my prophet’s hat here)? I see—certainly in Europe and very possibly in America—ethnic conflict on a scale never before seen in history. Bloodbaths, deportations, genocide and terrorism.
Until somebody charismatic and ruthless rides in on a white horse to impose order.
And I don’t like the thought of him either.