So It Goes

I feel old

An Evening with GM Hopkins

How do I introduce GM Hopkins? The man deserves so much acclaim, more than I can give, so I will be brief. Hopkins was a poet and a Christian. He wrote about God and did so beautifully. To miss out on his work is a true shame for the believer, for never outside of the Bible have I heard God more beautifully exalted. It is also if note that Hopkins is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential poets of the modernist era. Here, then, is a short sampling of his work. Enjoy

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves -- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Something Fishy Goin' On

I cooked catfish today! Doesn’t that sound impressive? I think it does, especially when you consider who did the cooking. Sure, it tasted like feet, but that’s not the point. The point is I cooked it and it was sanitary. Isn’t that worth something? Aren't you semi-impressed? Remember, the lower you keep your expectations the higher you’ll soar!

Reproach

The response to my commentary on the DTR has been mixed. On the one hand there are those, sad bruised soldiers that they are, who seem to agree with my position. The responses of these individuals are not at all surprising, for they are the very people out of whom my views were built. Then of course there are those who champion the DTR. This is by no means a surprise for, as I already commented, in principle alone the DTR is very sound. I will freely and gladly concede the sound reasoning behind the DTR, for this is the very thing which makes the operation’s failings so oppressive. We are only disappointed because we first expect it to work. Yes, the DTR may indeed work and succeed in certain respects. No doubt it will effectively clamp and restrain a relationship from going where it ought not to go. It may even act as a spur and push people forward into commitment, marriage, children, mortgages and and other such directions. But can real and romantic love come out of such prudent calculations? To my mind love should move with all the speed and force of gravity, which is to say at no fixed of controlled rate what so ever. The DTR’s intrusion is simply mechanical beyond redemption. And so while the DTR may produce something, it is nothing I should wish to consume or be consumed by. That is why I redefined it ‘Destroying the Romance’ and not ‘Destroying the Relationship.’ For the two, quite sadly, are not one and the same.

Reproach
by DH Lawrence

Had I but known yesterday,
Helen, you could discharge the ache
Out of the cloud;
Had I known yesterday you could take
The turgid electric ache away,
Drink it up with your proud
White body, as lovely white lightning
Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth,
I might have hated you, Helen.

But since my limbs gushed full of fire,
Since from out of my blood and bone
Poured a heavy flame
To you, earth of my atmosphere, stone
Of my steel, lovely white flint of desire,
You have no name.
Earth of my swaying atmosphere,
Substance of my inconstant breath,
I cannot but cleave to you.

Since you have drunken up the drear
Painful electric storm, and death
Is washed from the blue
Of my eyes, I see you beautiful.
You are strong and passive and beautiful,
I come like winds that uncertain hover;
But you
Are the earth I hover over.

Defining the Relationship

Oh the dreaded DTR! Yet another masochistic concept that only Christians would ever think of imposing on themselves. The basic premiss is solid: placing things out in the open, making one’s feelings, intentions and plans clear. However, like many other noble ideas, such as communism and nuclear armament, it fails to work out in practice. A more apropos definition for the DTR might be Destroying The Romance as this is all it ever seems to accomplished. How many casualty stories have I heard from friends? The carnage reeked is immeasurably beyond memory’s horizon. Yet can I name one victory claimed for the DTR? Sadly and assuredly the answer is no. So then why do we persist in this suicide dance? I know not. My only advise, crude and nondescript as it is, is to avoid the DTR like the plague. Advice, I am afraid, which few seem to heed. As for myself, I have personally redefined the DTR and made it my mantra: quite simply it means DON’T TALK RYAN! Truly there is a time and place to shut up. Even I know that.

Attack of the Killer Puppy

My dog Rooney is such a fighter. Nine weeks old and he can already whoop both our cats. Keeran, the one without claws, he just runs over; the poor thing doesn’t have a chance and runs away as fast as he can. As for the one with claws, Arlo, well the dog is more cautious with him. He will usual box at him with his front paws while he waits for a good opportunity to move in and take out the cat’s back legs. But sometimes he will just run in fearlessly, taking a clawing in the process as he overpowers the cat. He has so much fun bullying the cats; when they run away he looks so proud of himself. Sure, sometimes he comes away bleeding, but he doesn’t seem to care. You never hear him whine. Not a whimper.
When we first got the dog the cats tried their hardest to put him in his place and everyone figure Rooney would just learn to leave the cats alone and mind his business like our previous dog Winston. But three weeks later Rooney isn’t backing down and the cats are getting scared. He isn’t even as big as them yet. Wait until he is ten times their size, then they will be really terrified. He isn’t actually violent and he doesn’t try to hurt them. He just wants to play. But, like his namesake, he plays rough. Maybe someone needs to give my dog a red card?

The Sexist Chruch

This morning, while watching CNN, I came across a story which, quite frankly, has me ticked off to the max. The level of idiocy on the part of all parties concerned, including the media itself, is shameful. The end result is negative press for the church, a false and skewed representation of Christian values, and yet more fuel for the secularization fire.

Eighty-one year old Mary Lambert has been fired from her position as Sunday School teacher after 54 years of service at the First Baptist Church of Watertown New York. In her dismissal letter the church quoted 1 Timothy 2:12: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." Now, first of all I think this is a clear misuse of scripture. I am not going to go into the passage here, but I will cover it in my other blog. All I want to discuss for now are the responses off all the parties involved.

The church itself has been folding to public pressure in a way which shows no real respect for the authority of scripture. First they make a bold and controversial statement. Then, when people begin to question their position, they back down, claiming that there are numerous ways to interpret scripture, none of them essentially wrong; a position which implicitly denies the divine authority of scripture (2 Timothy 3:16). God’s is NOT a relativist. Secondly the church is now claiming that Lambert was not fired because she is a woman, but rather for other reasons which they are too “Christian” to name. I have no problem with a church choosing not to publicly embarrass and chastise one of its members. However, this is no excuse for using scripture in vein, without any conviction. If the church does not believe that 1 Timothy 2:12 in fact excludes a woman from teaching Sunday School then they should not use it as a pretense for their actions. Doing so encourages an interpretation of scripture which the church itself has no conviction in.

Mary Lambert herself, in my opinion, has handled the situation in a less than admirable way. In taking this story to the press she has done the Church (notice the capitol “C”) a huge disservice. She very well may have been wronged, but in seeking to expose the mistakes of her church she has opened up the Church as a whole to criticism. Her actions show little thought or concern for the Body of Christ. This is not to say that she should have let the incident slide without comment, but a secular organization such as CNN is clearly not the proper Biblical agent for correction. Also, considering this woman aspires to be a teacher of God’s Word, it is disappointing that in all her comments to the media, she has done nothing to reaffirm the authority of Scripture or clarify why she believes the church’s use of 2 Timothy 2:12 is a misapplication of scripture.

I would like to thoroughly rebuke the Rev. Timothy LaBouf, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Watertown. For some reason I feel he is the most guilty party involved, perhaps simply because he is the church’s pastor and primary teacher of the Word. However, I have little to say about him because he has chosen to remain virtually silent amidst all the discussion, refusing to speak to CNN when contacted. This is a man who has made the study of scripture his profession, he has taken the task on leading a church upon his shoulders, but when the Word itself and his church come under attack he is no where to be seen. In addition to being a pastor, Timothy LaBouf is also a City Councilor. The only statements he has released so far have been in relation to his political interests, as he attempts to re-affirm his ability to administer fairly and without discrimination. In doing so he only makes himself seem weak and indecisive, while inadvertently providing the media with sound bites and quotes to help them transform this story into a broader discussion of the separation of church and state. LaBouf, in his hurried back peddling, has achieved little other than to reaffirm the belief that religious convictions must be maintained privately, unobtrusively, ineffectually, meaninglessly.

Finally I turn my attention to CNN. Most of my complaints against the coverage of the story can be firmly levied against the aforementioned parties. All of them, while Christians, have done little to defend the authority of God’s Word of shed any intelligent light upon the passage in question (1 Timothy 2:12). All they have accomplished is to convey the impression that scripture is a tool of convenience, to be used to support preexisting suppositions. However, CNN has made one choice in their coverage of the story which displays their disinterested in reaching a true understanding of the issue under discussion. Instead of consulting authoritative sources who might comment insightfully upon the meaning of the verse used in Lambert’s dismissal and its application in this particular situation, they have chosen instead in interview people on the street for their opinions. Let us look at the circular reasoning behind such an approach. Lay-people turn to news agencies such as CNN to inform them in an attempt to reach sound, well founded positions. When CNN uses the opinions of the average, uninformed citizen to inform the other uninformed citizens, essential we began to re-consume out own ignorance: intellectual cannibalism. An injection of content is needed, not self-perpetuating lay-saying. By no means do I wish to deny people their right to hold their own opinion, nor am I criticizing them for being ignorant and uninformed. They are only uninformed because the media refuses to inform them. How are they to know if they are not taught?

In all likelihood this will blow-over quickly enough and few will remember the story. However, this does not prevent people from taking away their own disinterred opinions and impressions. This is how people form a bias.