Baseball

I've never been that big of a baseball fan. I mean, I've known the mechanics of the game since I was 5. Well, roughly. I mean, for my first season of T-ball I didn't really get that the first base coach wasn't actually on the team, so I'd always throw the ball to him. It makes sense, he was close to the bag, taller, and clearly the best player. Why shouldn't I throw it to him? I played ball for the 8 of the most formative years of my life, and then church softball for the next 6. Though I've never had a batbag of my own, I've never been without a fitting glove. I at least half-heartedly collected baseball cards and pored over my across the street neighbor Kade's Becket for hours looking up the latest prices on my investment. But that only lasted until I discovered Magic Cards.

You see, as much as I was indoctrinated into baseball from an early age, I never really cared so much about the sport. I liked to play it, though I doubt I ever really loved even that. Baseball is where I first learned the fear and humiliation of failure, after all. There's nothing quite as terrifying as walking up to the plate, knowing you aren't a very good hitter and that you probably need glasses but are too embarrassed by that fact to tell your parents, with all your teammates counting on you not to lose the game for them. It's enough to give you a perfectionist/fear-of-failure complex. Hmm. I remember making fast friends with players worse than I, bonded together in our mutual lower class athletic status. Still, at least partly I stood next to them to show the other kids that I was different - King of the Losers, so to speak, and therefore acceptable to the upper crust of raw athletic talent. I remember befriending the best player on the team, the coach's son, Brandon - my first man crush (by which I mean someone I wanted to be). Everything was easy for him. He was good at sports, but because he was so naturally gifted, he had no reason to be a jerk. He was king and didn't need to impress anyone, we all tried to impress him. Kids can be horribly cruel. I remember the temptations (to which I often succumbed) of trying to make yourself look better by attacking someone weirder or goofier looking or more stupid than yourself. And I remember that he never joined in. But of course, he didn't have to. He was already on the top.

The sad thing about that really is that I have, if not considerable, at least above average natural athletic ability. I can throw, I can run, I can make diving catches, and I can hit ok. Looking back now, it's easy to see that what really put me on the bottom was my fear itself. Had I been a little more carefree and less self-conscious I would have likely been a much better player.

I jumped into all this reminiscing only to say that, although I was never a fan of baseball, in that unlike many men of any age I don't have stats upon stats that I could run off in my head, I love it. No I don't know every player, even on my own favorite teams. But there is something about it that transcends statistics, or wins or losses. There is, of course, the glory of all athletic competition. There is something pure about Sport (capital S), something innocent that brings humanity together. But I mean more than that. Baseball itself has a quality that I've never run into in another sport - and its a distinctly American one. Likely that's only because that for about 50 years, every boy in the country played baseball at some point. Maybe soccer will become the new American pastime in years to come, but maybe there's really something about baseball itself. There's the smell of the grass, the dust of the infield, the lazy distractions of right field, and the sharp, nervous anticipation of Short Stop. And there's the crack of a wooden bat that signals an explosion of action.

Americans enjoy those tense situations...we like full count, bases loaded...or even 4th and inches. We like a pause, a chance to reflect before everything is decided. That is, after all, just good storytelling. Spectating baseball has its own, almost unexplainable charms. I only check scores on TV. The distance from the players and the lights of the field kills all the magic for me. But at a game...there's just nothing like it. I actually enjoy Football games more. The roar of the crowd, the press of bodies jumping up and down, 60,000 people all screaming for the same thing, united in passion for a good pass, a breakthrough run. But Baseball is different...and equal in its own lazy right. You can talk during baseball games. You can get up and walk around. You can watch the relief pitchers warm up in the bullpen. It's more than fun. It's like...being at home.

(Sorry for the essay form, kids, I wasn't originally planning to post this but I liked it - W.)

Gaza

This is...well both incredibly frightening and moving. I don't know what to say. They are trapped in that place and thugs are walking the streets. There is no law. There is no future. There is certainly no victory here. This is just the beginning - there will only be more and more bloodshed.

'Only Hamas gunmen walk the deserted streets'

Hazem Balousha, a Gaza-based journalist, gives an eyewitness account of the hardship and danger in a city gripped by chaos

Thursday June 14, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


Hamas supporters celebrate after capturing the headquarters of the Preventative Security Force, which was loyal to the Palestinian president and Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, in Gaza City. Photograph: Abid Katib/Getty Images

Late this afternoon the shooting appeared to die down. It's been going on now for five days - bullets and bombs going off day and night. The most important thing is keeping my niece and nephew occupied. They have heard gunfire at weddings before, so I have told them it's just a big wedding.

They replied that it was such a big wedding that it must be the president's. If only they knew - he has other matters on his mind at the moment.

But worse than the noise of war is the noise of loudspeakers at the mosque. They are saying: "We are Hamas. We are the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. We will defeat Fatah. We will liberate Gaza from the collaborators and the traitors." The loudspeaker is never quiet.

We live close to the intelligence headquarters, which has been under attack. The loudspeakers call on the fighters to surrender. If they do, they will survive, if they don't they will be killed.

My apartment is on the fourth floor, but it is too exposed and dangerous so I moved to my parents' place on the ground floor, which has some cover. Since Sunday, several bullets have hit my apartment and the windows have been smashed. When the shooting stops for five or 10 minutes, I try and take a look out the window. The streets are deserted of cars and people. Only the Hamas gunmen are walking the streets. Everyone else is holed up inside.

This chaos did not come as a big surprise, so we have been stocking food. We have no bread, but my mother is trying to make some now. The electricity lasted until last night and there has been none since.

Suddenly there is a new announcement from the mosque. "Hamas have taken the intelligence headquarters." Earlier this week, it was hard to tell the fighters apart. You could see masked men wearing black T-shirts, flak jackets and camouflage trousers. They carried rifles, grenade launchers and mortar tubes. Now it's clear who is who. The Hamas fighters are kneeling in prayer, congratulating each other and greeting onlookers. The Fatah men are being led from the building, hands in the air, some stripped to the waist. It is unclear what will happen to them.

There may be a bit of quiet for a while, but it won't last. Israel will now have new excuses to attack Gaza. With Hamas in control of Gaza, no one will be able to stop Israel. Even though Fatah seem to be doing badly at the moment, they are not finished and this is not the last round.

My eldest brother is close to Hamas and he seems happy with the way things are going. My other brother is more pragmatic, he is concerned about his businesses and the future. Some are saying Gaza will be sealed off now, isolated from the world like a new Taliban state. Personally, I think this is a disaster. I might leave. I have visas for Ireland and the UK, but the border is closed.

Colin Powell, Public Servant

Read the Washington Post story here. As much as I wish that he had stood up to the President on Iraq instead of doing his duty (not that a man like Colin Powell could do any less) I have to say that I admire him tremendously. I certainly hope he is involved in the next administration, democrat or republican. America could only benefit from his sage foreign policy advice - if only the people who matter actually listen.

Why I would have trouble working for the CIA...

I'm not anti CIA. I think they've done many questionable things over the years, but fundamentally I believe very strongly in American ideals and that in order to protect those ideas you absolutely must have an incredible intelligence network. And I think that the Agency, despite all the things they do horribly wrong, does a lot of things well. It is, after all, the kind of organization that you never hear the whole story and you're much less likely to hear what they do right than what they do wrong. And I mean that both practically as well as morally. After all, they are in the business of saving American (and allied) lives. They can hardly be blamed for Iraq - if the administration had listened to our intelligence we would have known that there were no WMD's to be found. Good intelligence is about the of preventing war...or at least making it as small scale as humanly possible. But zeal for the protection of American lives can lead and has led the Agency to do some monumentally stupid things. I fear that the War on Terrorism will lead us to make the same damn mistakes as we did in the War Against Communism. Namely, that we end up supporting whomever happens to have the resources to help up root out terrorists: fascist dictators bent on genocide to root out terrorists bent on killing us. Part of the problem is that the CIA is run by political appointees who take their cues from the administration. The pressure gets pushed down to the grunt-level zealots, who when there is any moral ambiguity rely on the old standards - ends justify the means. Only the means often make the ends impossible in the long run.

Anyway, sorry for the rant: here's a story from the LA Times that prompted it.

I'm in a writing mood. Look for more posts throughout the day. And by that I mostly mean, read them all at once cause you don't check the blog obsessively like I do.

-Peace, seriously. Warnie.

Triumphant Return

Warnie, Boos,


Describing Hawai'i is sort of fruitless. I can do it, but it would take forever. Suffice it to say that Magnum P.I. is exactly correct. Tom Selleck is everywhere. And there are tons of Lamborghini's. And other impossible words to spell.

Actually, that's a lot of the difficulty. Dave Barry supposedly tells the story that when the Tahitians were coming to Hawaii, they brought everything they'd need, including the language. Unfortunately, most of the consonants washed away in a storm.

Here's the Hawaiian name for the Picasso Triggerfish. Humuhumunukunukuapua'a. That's the unofficial state fish. My favorite though was the Parrotfish, so called by us white-eyes because it has a very strong beak and big eyes (it uses the beak to snap coral). The Hawaiians call it "uhu" which means "loose bowels". The fish is followed by a cloud.

We actually spent most of our time hiking around in the forests and mountains, or at least more time than at the beach (we did a fair piece of snorkeling as well). That suited me. The Big Island, where we were first, had really cool rock beaches, with tide pools and things like that (two sea turtles swam right up to me and Pockets, swimming through our legs) and the atmosphere was much more like Nag's Head. Maui was very touristy, although with nice beaches.

Anyway, I'm trying to work on some poems related to the idea, but more about traveling in general. They're little tribute poems to the various folks that went with me, and I'm still working them out. But I thought I'd pass on the first one here.

Engineer (for my father-in-law)

The diarist at his journal

is a crayfish in a dark pond

combing the algae for food

with his facile, plated feet.

His mind is an elegant factory

where the day is refined to sentences

and a date—streamlined, sturdy,

and sleek as she needs to be.

It's short, but that's sort of the point. Anyway, I'm hoping to fill out the rest of my understandings with little things like that.

Hmm, it's early. Brain not functioning. Need coffee.

But I'm back, and I'll be posting.

--Jack

Mom and Dad

Hi all,
Next year, not this june, but next june is Mom and Dad's 30th wedding anniversary. I think we should start planning something now, especially since, as money goes, we all need to probably start saving up. Brian suggested whatever it is, we could give it to them at christmas so that they would have time to arrange it into their schedules. So, start listing ideas. I think a fun vacation or something would be well deserved. I think a surprise party would be fun but a little too hard to arrange/invite people they know. Start listing ideas boys...let me know what you think.

Indian Sunset

Listening to old school Elton John this morning. "Indian Sunset" is such a good song. It pulls at me every time I hear it.

As I awoke this evening with the smell of wood smoke clinging
Like a gentle cobweb hanging upon a painted tepee
Oh I went to see my chieftain with my warlance and my woman
For he told us that the yellow moon would very soon be leaving
This I cant believe I said, I cant believe our warlords dead
Oh he would not leave the chosen ones to the buzzards and the soldiers guns

Oh great father of the iroquois ever since I was young
Ive read the writing of the smoke and breast fed on the sound of drums
Ive learned to hurl the tomahawk and ride a painted pony wild
To run the gauntlet of the sioux, to make a chieftains daughter mine

And now you ask that I should watch
The red mans race be slowly crushed
What kind of words are these to hear
From yellow dog whom white man fears

I take only what is mine lord, my pony, my squaw, and my child
I cant stay to see you die along with my tribes pride
I go to search for the yellow moon and the fathers of our sons
Where the red sun sinks in the hills of gold and the healing waters run

Trampling down the prairie rose leaving hoof tracks in the sand
Those who wish to follow me I welcome with my hands
I heard from passing renegades geronimo was dead
Hed been laying down his weapons when they filled him full of lead

Now there seems no reason why I should carry on
In this land that once was my land I cant find a home
Its lonely and its quiet and the horse soldiers are coming
And I think its time I strung my bow and ceased my senseless running
For soon Ill find the yellow moon along with my loved ones
Where the buffalos graze in clover fields without the sound of guns

And the red sun sinks at last into the hills of gold
And peace to this young warrior comes with a bullet hole

its hot...boo fredericksburg, thats all i can say

Pearls Before Swine

Saw this in the Washington Post Express this morning and thought it was pretty good. Pearls Before Swine can be found here.

An A+

UUA

This is a Unitarian Frog. I kid you not. It is an example of one of the 7 unitarian principles to be found here. Seriously. Hop to it.

Black Moods - Against Everything

Certain things just set me off. I don't know exactly what to do about it, because even when I can recognize the source, and objectively sit back and say - "This is why you feel this way, don't let it get to you." - my emotion still has near complete control over me. I find I can't get work done, I don't act like myself. Of course, I write more when I'm in a mood like this, so maybe its not all bad. Anyway, I started reading Captain Alatriste, Jack, and, though at first I wasn't too impressed because the writing itself wasn't anything special, I'm starting to get hooked now. To be fair, it could easily be the translation that makes the writing flat occasionally, but actually the more I get into it the more I like the simplicity of it. There are some noble, deep, strong, human sentiments expressed very directly - I've come to appreciate raw writing more than I used to. Its great if one can get both into a novel (see Dostoevsky) but if you have to choose, clarity is better than cleverness. I especially liked this bit:

"'We have no choice but to fight,' the poet added after a few seconds. His tone was pensive, as if for himself only; one eye was swimming in wine, and the other had gone down for the last time. Alatriste, still holding his friend's arm and bending over the table, smiled with affectionate sadness. 'Against whom, don Francisco?' The captain seemed almost not to expect an answer. Quevedo raised a finger. His eyeglasses had slipped from his nose and were dangling from their cord, nearly dipping into his wine. 'Against stupidity, evil, supersition, envy, and ignorance,' he enunciated slowly, and as he spoke, he appeared to regard his reflection on the surface of the liquid. 'Which is to say, against all Spain. Against everything.'"

All any writer can really ask for is a chance for a few good lines like those. They struck a chord with me at least.

mountains

Sorry for my lack of postage lately. I didn't have internet at my new place until thursday, AND for some reason the internet we do have doesn't want to work with my computer. SO thats been making things difficult.
I'm home for the weekend before spending some much needed time at my friend Gavin's cabin on the James. I can't explain how much I missed the mountains. I hadn't been home since school ended and as I came over Afton today and saw the blueridge in all its glory, I just about cried. I really can't explain it. It's like all my stress and worries just disappear when I am here. I feel like I am my better self. Anywho, before I get to in depth, I'm going to go pass out and fall asleep. I would like to apologize for my general lack of communication with both of you, and Lori. The past couple of weeks have just been insane. I love you
BBoo

Yeats

While (not) working today I started reading The Wanderings of Oisin by W.B. Yeats. I like it. It makes me daydream of fogs, and phantoms, and things seen out of the corner of your eyes. It makes me want to write about horizons, and places you can't get to.

And then I mounted and she bound me

With her triumphing arms around me,

And whispering to herself enwound me;

He shook himself and neighed three times:

Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,

And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,

And bid me stay, with many a tear;

But we rode out from the human lands.

In what far kingdom do you go'

Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?

Or are you phantoms white as snow,

Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?

O you, with whom in sloping valleys,

Or down the dewy forest alleys,

I chased at morn the flying deer,

With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,

And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,

And broke the heaving ranks of battle!

And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,

Where are you with your long rough hair?

You go not where the red deer feeds,

Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

I'll leave off without nagging about the lack of a bible comment or post from Jack. I mean, I don't want to be annoying.

Love,

Warnie

Criticism

Jesus frickin Christ, I am such a child. I really can't take criticism at all. Today I was biting my tongue so as not to tell my boss to fuck off when he made some (as it turns out valid) remarks about my review. I'm sure he could see it in my eyes.

If I'm going to do this for a living, I've really got to loosen up, but it's so hard for me. I'm so sensitive about what I write, whether its fiction or non, that I can't listen when people are honestly trying to help. All I hear is, you suck you suck you suck. And all I can imagine is me beating in their heads with a window air conditioner ala High Fidelity. Is it arrogance? I mean, I expect a lot from myself, but I don't think I'm the best by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe its just that no one likes other people to validate their private insecurities.

I'd ask for help in this, but I like you guys and I don't want to beat your heads in.

Love,
Warnie

The Scariest Terrorists of All

I'll be commenting a little later (either tonight or tomorrow probably) for the Bible Study, but in the meantime, I thought I'd share a little bit of The Funny with you. This was sent to me today.
_______________________________

Jon Carroll
San Francisco Chronicle
Jon Carroll
Friday, April 8, 2005

The following is the first communique from a group calling itself Unitarian Jihad. It was sent to me at The Chronicle via an anonymous spam remailer. I have no idea whether other news organizations have received this communique, and, if so, why they have not chosen to print it. Perhaps they fear starting a panic. I feel strongly that the truth, no matter how alarming, trivial or disgusting, must always be told. I am pleased to report that the words below are at least not disgusting:

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States. We are Unitarian Jihad. There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary.
Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them. You have a right to your moderation! You have the power to be calm! We will use the IED of truth to explode the SUV of dogmatic expression!
People of the United States, why is everyone yelling at you??? Whatever happened to ... you know, everything? Why is the news dominated by nutballs saying that the Ten Commandments have to be tattooed inside the eyelids of every American, or that Allah has told them to kill Americans in order to rid the world of Satan, or that Yahweh has instructed them to go live wherever they feel like, or that Shiva thinks bombing mosques is a great idea? Sister Immaculate Dagger of Peace notes for the record that we mean no disrespect to Jews, Muslims, Christians or Hindus. Referred back to the committee of the whole for further discussion.
We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere. We have not been born again, nor have we sworn a blood oath. We do not think that God cares what we read, what we eat or whom we sleep with. Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity notes for the record that he does not have a moral code but is nevertheless a good person, and Unexalted Leader Garrote of Forgiveness stipulates that Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity is a good person, and this is to be reflected in the minutes.
Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.
We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons.
We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.
Brother Gatling Gun of Patience notes that he's pretty sure the world is out to get him because everyone laughs when he says he is a Unitarian. There were murmurs of assent around the room, and someone suggested that we buy some Congress members and really stick it to the Baptists. But this was deemed against Revolutionary Principles, and Brother Gatling Gun of Patience was remanded to the Sunday Flowers and Banners committee.
People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution.
_____________

Startling new underground group spreads lack of panic! Citizens declare themselves "relatively unafraid" of threats of undeclared rationality. People can still go to France, terrorist leader says.

Michael row the boat ashore, and then get some of the local kids to pull the boat onto the dock, and come visit with jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.

___________________________

I love "What ever happenned to, you know...everything?"

I'm out kids. God's Peace.

Warnie

A quick Haiku

This came to me yesterday, and I like it. A fare-thee-well to a tough month.

April

The mist has an edge.
The anarchist's knife hides
in a black overcoat.


And before there's any moaning about 5-7-5 nonsense, that's not how it's done in japanese. And it's 17 syllables, and prettier this way.

So, just wanted to share. Anytime I get a poem in the middle of a thunderstorm, I feel it needs to be aired.

Jack

Chapter 2

Hello all,
So a lot happens in Chapter 2. God has day of rest, God makes the rivers come up, God creates man, man names animals, really scary tree of life and tree of the knowledge of good and evil talk, and then God creates woman and Adam is like woah. I love the part where it says that God breathed the breath of life into Adams nostrils. I think its a very intimate part of the Chapter because when I imagine it in my head God is actually CPR style cupping his lips of adam and actually breathing into him. P.S If you've ever been woken up by someone doing that, its very uncomfortable.
I actually had verse 9 where its talking about the tree of life underlined. I remember I had underlined it earlier and each time it is mentioned in the bible because it is also mentioned in Revelations 22. "And across the river was the tree of life bearing fruit to all the nations." (I just remembered that I didn't even have to look it up, crazy!) I don't know why I find that so fascinating that it should be mentioned all over the place but it seems very important to me.
Now, Man meets Woman. I also actually really like this part. Some crazy feminists might disagree with me, but I love the idea of how connected man and woman are besides just being from the same species. We're not just alike, we are part of each other. There is nothing more intimate and I love the poetry of "bones of my bones, flesh of my flesh."

I don't really have much else to say, Genesis is pretty straight forward and all poetry. I hope you enjoyed it, sorry if it was stupid. You're next Jack.

love,
Bboo
P.S. how cool is it that the word gene is in genesis? And who says religion and science don't go hand in hand?

PS

PS - I didn't think of it at first but it recently occurred to me (I just keep forgetting to mention it) that we have another sibling who wasn't originally invited to participate in the blo...ahem, Correspondence. Pockets can of course participate in this if she wants to. I don't want her to think we've excluded her. It's the name that matters not the blood. And once you're a Wilkins, you're a full Wilkins. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, I'd love to have another perspective on things. But then if she's not interested that's fine too. I just didn't want her to think it was just for us.

-Warnie

Bible Study or In the Beginning God Created...what out of what?

Kids,

First, sorry that I'm late on this. I know I told the Boo that I'd get this done by yesterday, but I was gone from church to 11:30 and so I just crashed when I got in.

Apologies aside, here's the first installment of the Wilkins version of a Biblical Literacy class. The rules are simple, we'll go (roughly) Sunday to Sunday, one chapter a week. I'll start today, The Boo will follow, and Jack'll go last. Unless you guys want to switch, but it really shouldn't matter. You can work it out. The idea is that the person leading will carefully read the chapter, and then post about...well anything that (s)he wants to related to the scripture. The purpose is to read it much as if we never had, so try hard to ditch the preconceptions we have. Ok, obviously that's an impossible goal. I guess what I mean is, pay special attention to those throw away verses that we tend to skip when we read alone, because well, they don't make that much sense or they don't fit in with the way we've been taught our whole lives. Obviously, to a great extent, any opinions or judgments we are going to be making will stem from they way we've been raised and what we honestly believe. But we shouldn't let that stop us from really engaging with whatever the text actually says.

It is the responsibility of those not blogging that week to comment. You must read the passage yourself, and comment either on the blogger's (let's call ourselves writers, or corresponders, or something...I hate blogger) observations, or to add your own. And of course feel free to respond back and forth as much as you like. To those who may be reading this and are not Jack, Warnie, or a Boo, feel free to comment as well. Only you won't get front and center attention. Because we're cooler and more important than you.

Oh one more thing. I don't know about you guys, but I'll be reading the NIV. It might be useful for us all to use the same version, but if you use something else, just note it in your opening entry so we can find the version you read. I'm pretty sure most versions can be found for free online.

So, without further ado, here goes.
________________________________________________



I think it's interesting that the early modern bible compilers, who added Chapter and Verse, thought it necessary to cut the first chapter after 6 days, leaving the 7th to the second chapter, and, for us, next week. I wonder if they wanted to emphasize that 7th day, or the first 6?

But going through it, the first thing I am really struck by is, of course, the poetry of it. It is even laid out, at least in my bible, in poetical form. There seems little doubt to me that this was simply intended, from the very beginning, to be a story, a mythology if you will - though that work carries baggage that maybe should be avoided - explaining truth rather than being full of facts. There are a number of truths that it expounds in a very beautiful way. The largest of course being that God created the heavens and the earth. I'm probably putting my liberal public school biases into this, but it seems to me that it doesn't really matter how he made it so much as it matters that he did. For which, I am eternally grateful.

The chapter also suggests that the creation of the world was something difficult, and something that God didn't just do all at once. That's comforting as well in several ways. It's comforting to think that God took his time. Even if he were capable of doing it perfectly all at once, he chose not to, but to divide his time and get it just right. After all, isn't it a greater miracle to see his plan come to fruition over hundreds of thousands of years? Or frankly, even 6 days. It's nice to think that he loved his creation so much that even though he had the capability to do a perfect rush job, he chose not to. And it also shows his human side from the start. From the very first chapter we see that God worked and not only that, he took time to stand back and examine his handiwork, happy that it turned out. Which begs the question, could it have been bad? Would he have had to start over? Could he have sat back and said, "I can't get the FUCKING trees! I will kill everyone in the world! (that I haven't created yet). Maybe, maybe not. But it still gives a very human quality to God, which is nice to see in the beginning of the Bible, making the God of the Old not quite so different from the God of the New as it is easy to think at times.

A few specific observations: The NIV doesn't say the earth was void like I thought it would (I suppose its the James I'm getting that from) but rather "formless and empty, darkness was on the surface of the deep...". That's a little easier to picture. Void was a concept hard to grasp, since I would always picture it as kind of hazy clouds (like if you press on your eyes for a while you start to see these rolling shapes, kind of like clouds defined in lightning...do it you'll see what I'm talking about. Of course it's really just your eyes saying, hey stop pressing on me dumbass. One of these days I'll go blind! I'll do it! Anyway...) But I knew that wasn't VOID because void was nothing. This is more like an empty ocean in the dark. Which is easier to picture. Though it does make you wonder why we're jumping in after water's already been made. Then again, from a poetic perspective, what can you imagine that could be more empty than a dark sea, with nothing in sight? Not only empty, but lonely.

From a historical perspective the first chapter tells us a good deal about the writers, who of course weren't the originators, but it's harder to nail down what persisted from and what was added to the oral tradition. Still, the fact that the writer has the livestock created separately from the wild animals says that this is at least the birth of an agricultural civilization.

Finally, one important point that I noticed - the creation of man account is different from how I remembered it. Or actually not so different, but this time I noticed a slight problem that I didn't before. In a touching scene, set off from the rest of the text, God creates Man in his image - male and female. No ribs. And then the next verse: "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it."

If I were a literalist I might think that God were giving an equal share of earth to both Man and Woman - both created in his image. Thank God I can interpret scripture to keep women making me sandwiches.

Last thing...after the 6th day, God saw all that he had made and it was very good. One thing to take from this - without a doubt, God delights in his creation, and especially in human beings - our lives, our stories, our hopes, and our dreams. From the start he is a loving creator - the deist clockmaker is hard to see from this passage.

____________________________________________

Next week: The Boo rocks Chapter 2. Something tells me we're going to get a break. (Haha. Day of rest, get it?)

PEACE OUT CRACKAHS!

Love,
Warnie

Foreign Hypocrisy, Protestant Theology, and more Hate Crimes

Siblings,

I've got a lot on my mind this morning that I'm going to hit you with. Maybe I should have broken it up into several posts, but, as I'm already the only one posting (cough cough) I thought I'd just stick with the one.

First off, the Washington Post reports that foreign newspapers are using the tragedy at Tech as an opportunity to criticize what they deem to be a violent American society. Some simply point at our lax gun laws, others cite a culture that tends towards violence to solve our problems rather than dialogue and others go so far as to say that the shooting was a direct result of our foreign policy. I have a couple of things to say about that. A) Fuck the media, including our own. I understand that with a 24 hour news cycle you end up saying the same things over and over again, but I am not sympathetic when you turn tragedy into your own soap opera for the sake of ratings. Yes, Fox 9 I am talking to you. CAMPUS MASSACRE, join us as we interview students and break up a prayer vigil to give you LIVE coverage of TRAGEDY. B) An extra fuck you to the foreign media. This is not a story of Marines being killed in action, this is obviously just a horrific event. You don't politicize this. I don't care if it happened in Nazi Germany, you would say, this is horrible, I'm so sorry. That's it. It's called ethics. And C) a great big giant Fuck Off to France, you hypocritical toad sucking bastards. Quoting the article:

"I'm not saying that it could only happen in the U.S.A.; no one could prevent someone from shooting people in the Sorbonne," said Pierre Chiquet, a 77-year-old retired aerospace engineer, referring to a Paris university. "But violence is more imbued in American society than in ours. The most dramatic aspect is that they even transport their violence to the rest of the world."

I seem to remember it wasn't that long ago that French cities were paralyzed by violence. Did I dream it? Nope.

Sigh. It seems like every time I start to feel like I can't identify with my own country, that I am a citizen of the world, a liberal, a progressive, an intellectual, I am reminded just how much foreigners piss me off.

Moving on. So, as any self-respecting protestant, I believe that I am a sinful being. I recognize the dual nature of humanity - we are both of this kingdom and of the next. Therefore, in any endeavor I wish to succeed, I should build in a certain amount of safeguards - checks and balances, if you will. The last week I've been down. I don't know why I've been down exactly, and though usually I consciously think about the reasons why I'm sad, I didn't even notice objectively this time around. Thinking back, I think I was more bored than anything - but as you guys know, bored when you're relatively lonely ends up equalling down. I'm not sure of the cause, it just happens to me and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. However, it did occur to me that it might have a simple cause. I can't remember if I posted about this but recently I made a resolution to walk everyday, read everyday, write 1 page of something everyday, and read a passage from the bible, writing out a prayer so I could hold it better. Ambitious? Maybe. But I was keeping my resolution tolerably well. I was walking at least 4 times a week, and reading, and even keeping the prayer journal idea. And I felt better, if only because that gave me a focused task for an hour and a half everyday.

The weather turned bad. I didn't walk. I'd really like to think my sanity was not so fragile, but I think it may be. I stopped reading and seriously praying. I got sad. It's dumb but I think good protestant theology tells me I should expect this. We are weak and fragile creatures, but God is good and strong. So what's the point? you ask, bored with such a long post already. I am proposing a method of safeguards - each other. I'm proposing a sort of group bible study - but not in the traditional sense. I stumbled across a great idea over at Slate. David Plotz, a Jew who believed he more or less knew the bible, has decided to read the bible all the way through, paying attention to all those passages that we normally just let slip by. Click on the link, he does a better job of describing it than I do. It made me think - how well do I know the bible? I mean, I'm more than willing to admit it's got it's fair share of mistakes but I still believe it not only contains truth but Truth and it is the basis for the way I structure my life (along with The Goonies - which, incidentally, might be made into a musical). Anyway, we could read it through together, maybe a chapter a day, maybe a book a week, however we want to do it. We could rotate who takes the lead post voicing concerns, and the others could comment. I think it could really help me, at least, and I know I'd be more likely to do it if we set a schedule ahead of time and held each other accountable. I may try it by myself if you guys aren't interested, but I think it would be a better group activity.

And finally, considering my ire over the media, I should make a disclaimer about the Hate Crimes post I made the other day. The legislation isn't as insidious as I believed. What it does is make crimes that specifically target those with variant sexual orientations federal cases, just like racial minority cases are. I'm still not so keen on the idea of making bigotry a federal offense, but this could be a necessary step to curb abuses by state authorities. We'll see.

Hit me back on this one - I think I might email you to say I've posted.

By the way, because even though we say it, you can't say it enough. I love you guys, and I'm glad it was Tech and not UNH and not UMW.

Warnie

VA Tech Shooting

They are saying now that not only was it the worst school shooting in American history, but based on the new death toll (in the 30s last I heard) it was the worst shooting ever in American history. Not that a statistic like that matters a lick to the families of the dead or injured.

I first heard when Julie called me. You know everything’s not ok when the first words out of someone’s mouth are: “First of all, everyone you know is ok.” Then I saw an email from Dad at about the same time.

At first, I have to admit, I didn’t really even think about it. When I heard school shooting, I guess I was just thinking along the lines of the UVA shooting where a football player was injured – you know, something bad but not that bad. But that’s not even it – even when I saw the numbers it still didn’t affect me. I was thinking, “Wow, that’s horrible.” But I was still scanning my other emails while listening, but not really listening to Julie.

I called Nathan, because even though I knew he was ok, I figured I should. I think when I heard his voice shaking, that’s when it hit me that this was serious. He couldn’t talk because he was locked down in the building next to where it happened. At the time, they were still pretty unsure of what was going on.

This was all during my lunch break – as I walked back to work I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach: heavy boots, like Oskar from the Jonathan Safran Foer book would say. I started to see it over and over again in my head, thinking how easy it must have been. I don’t mean to turn this into a post about gun control, but in Virginia there is no state law against the sale or possession of semiautomatic assault weapons (like an AK47). I’m not sure what weapon the shooter had, but Nathan says that a friend of his who heard the gunfire said it was some kind of automatic fire. He could have bought it as legally as he could a hunting rifle. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference what kind of gun he had. But it’s a lot easier to kill 31 people when you have a weapon that can fire 100 bullets without reloading.

I was relieved of course. No one that I knew well had been hurt as far as I could tell. Of course then Beth calls and reminds me about Geoff Wilson, saying she couldn’t get in touch with him. I hope that he’s alright.

I don’t know why it hit me as hard as it did. I got really shaken by it, and I kept seeing a classroom - in my head a replica of classrooms at Cabell Hall (no windows, shitty desks) - literally slick with blood. An assault rifle at close range does horrible things to the human body.

Did they hide under their desks? Did they try and rush him to be gunned down? Would I? Could I overcome the fear? Would I even have time to be afraid? Maybe the simpler and better question is would I be able to overcome the nausea? I felt a little sick just thinking about it – how could I handle being there?

What makes a person go to such extremes? Beth told me, and then I saw on the news that there is speculation that this was a jilted boyfriend. Which of course begs the question – was he only after revenge against one person? If so, why on earth would he kill so many? Did he figure that it wouldn’t matter anymore? Does it? Once you are willing to kill one, do numbers really make a difference to you anymore?

I wasn’t there, but when I heard that the killer was dead, I thought, “Thank God.” Not just, thank God the shooting has stopped. Thank God he’s been killed. I don’t think this stems from hate or revenge, although there certainly may have been some of that too. But when someone goes so far to remove themselves from human society are they human anymore? When a dog goes mad and kills a baby you put down the dog. You don’t hate the dog, because it’s just a dog. You put it down because it’s what needs to be done.

Actually I’m not sure if that applies. Maybe anger or hate is a perfectly good reason. As a Christian I want to think forgiveness for everything – maybe everyone should be given the chance for salvation and rehabilitation. But my first thought was still, Thank God.

I hope this isn’t in bad taste. I can’t seem to stop thinking about it, and I can’t get any work done so I thought I’d write it out. I don’t really know what to think – I just have questions that I don’t think can be answered.

-Ben

Hate Crimes

Rev. Dr. Welton Gaddy, if you don’t know, is the head of the Interfaith Alliance of which the BJC is a part. Normally, I’m all for the work they do there, and I think they present a reasonable stand on religious liberty issues, showing that not all religious people think that government support of religion is a good thing. However, religious liberty is not all that the group is involved in. Rather, they are comprised of the religious left and so involve themselves in a number of social justice issues. Again, I consider myself to be fairly left leaning myself, or at least on the left side of moderate, and I think it’s great that there are religious people that acknowledge that the Bible has more to say about poverty than about abortion or homosexuality.

That being said, I have received an email from Rev. Gaddy (in my lofty capacity as Intern1@bjconline.org) which I could not be more against. It is an action alert kind of email, encouraging the BJC to get involved in mobilizing our grassroots organization to fight for hate crimes legislation. Here’s the gist of it:

Every 73 minutes, someone commits a hate crime in America.Believe it or not, victims targeted because of religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability are not yet fully protected under existing laws. 7,163 hate crimes were reported to local law enforcement in 2006, and the FBI estimates that there are 15 times more hate crimes that go unreported every year*.
Crimes fueled by hatred and bigotry assault a core principle of our various spiritual beliefs -- that every human being has inherent dignity and worth. Religion and government must work together appropriately to make America a place in which diverse people are safe and free.
You and I know that hatred and exclusion are not moral or democratic values. With your support , The Interfaith Alliance will keep working for an America where hate violence is no longer a threat to our communities.

I have two major issues with this nonsense. First, every crime is a hate crime. If you beat the shit out of someone, it’s not going to be because you like him very much. Who cares if you did it because he was black or Muslim or Buddhist or atheist or if you did it because he had a big chunk of change rattling in his pocket? You were able to remove his humanity and treat him as if he were not a fellow human being. That’s hatred.

Second, and more importantly, anyone who fights for freedom of conscience should be horrified at any attempt for government to legislate against what you think. In a free society, your opinions, as horrible as they might be, are your own and none of the government’s damn business. Passing such legislation would set a horrendous precedent. It gives government powers, not only over what actions you take but over what you believe. Thankfully, such laws would be deemed unconstitutional by any court worth its salt.

I'm not a libertarian, because I think stand offish government is ridiculous in a modern world. The state has a responsibility to be involved in the lives of its people, especially in a democracy. But I dont' understand why anyone would trust their government so wholeheartedly as it seems both liberals (with legislation like this) and conservatives (with Patriot Act bullshit) do. Government is made of people and as people is full of stupidity as well as willful sin. Anyone given the power of the sword should be watched very carefully.

A Great Idea

I just had a damn fine idea for the Democratic Party - one which I'm not sure has really occurred to anyone.

What if there was a Gore/Obama Ticket? Sounds like a stretch right? But that's only because it'd be too good to be true. You'd have the experience that Al brings to the table combined with the excitement the Obama has shown that he can generate. Plus, with Al's new status as Green Prophet I doubt there's really any chance they could lose. Think about the future possibilities of that - 16 years of able leadership. Any doubts of Obama's executive qualities would disappear after 4 years as a Vice. And whatever his personality faults, Gore is a faithful Baptist, and one of the most, if not the most, intelligent persons in politics today.

That's a ticket I would really get excited about. I think you could overcome any hesitations on either candidate by putting them together and the benefits for the country would be enormous.

President Frawley

Ah, mary wash...

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/Web/2007/042007/frawley

hope you boys enjoy that. As I told Ben, the student body is considering mailing him solo cups as a symbol of our appreciation.
love you both,
Bboo

A Day in the Life of the Late Great....Potentate - and by that I mean me.

Dear Siblings,

I'm writing tonight, even though I don't really have anything to write about, because I feel like writing. I've felt the bug all day today, though I haven't been able to nail down what exactly I wanted to say. Which, as you both know, is somewhat frustrating. So I'll just describe my day.

Work was relatively uneventful - not because I didn't have work to do, but because I'm tired of doing it. That's not exactly true. I actually have projects to do that on paper are great. The biggest one is a baptist history project. I have full creativity over it. The problem is that I have no deadline, I guess and so now it has become something that I know I should be working on - which makes something that should be enjoyable into something repugnant. If I had a deadline, I'd get it done, but I don't want to be such a servile worker. I want to be someone with initiative - someone who is self-motivated to get the job done.

Anyway, I told myself several times to work on it, but, of course, did not. I did all the other tasks that were immediate and then goofed off for the rest of the time.

After work I walked out to the Mall to smoke my pipe and read the book the Steph gave me - Johnathan Safron Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. If either of you ever get the chance you should read it. It's very well written and one of those few books that moves quickly and yet also scratches at greatness. I read a line today that I had to write down: "I sometimes hear my bone creak with the weight of all the lives I haven't lived." It sounds a little cheezy out of context, but it's great trust me. That same section that I read today contains one of the saddest stories I've ever read. I don't want to spoil it for you, but I'll tell you it involves blank pages (literally).

I guess it was the book that made me want to write. Anytime I read something well done, I want to imitate it, after my own fashion. But then whatever I write ends up being basically like this, which seems to be the only style I have. In a perfect world, I would stay up all night working on a project, a short story, a character, anything, going over it again and again until I got it right. I feel like I used to do that in high school. Remember how I used to play with photoshop or make techno music? I'd work on it happily for hours and hours. Anything I did creatively back then I seemed to actually enjoy doing, or maybe that's just golden tinge of memory. Still, I wrote all that poetry back then - of course it was bad, but every night I'd write something. Where did that impulse go?

So when I got back, even though I said I wouldn't, I changed my mind and put off writing to grab something to eat. Eating meant watching reruns "just while I ate" which of course lasted for an hour. I came upstairs to write, but then decided to watch some of the HBO series Rome. The show has kind of grown on me. I wasn't too fond of it at first, but the more I watch it the more I really get into it, though it is annoyingly overly focused on the sexual aspects of a pagan society. They conveniently ignore the fact that Rome was one of the most conservative societies to ever exist, decadence being done behind closed doors. Which isn't exactly true either, but Roman society wasn't a constant orgy which this comes close to portraying it as. Still, the other parts of the story are interesting - and they do a very good job with capturing Caesar, Marc Antony, Octavian, and Attia especially I think.

So, this part was annoying - while watching Rome, one of my roommates comes up to my room (John my actual roommate {I wish we didn't use roommate for everything in American English...I think I won't.} and my housemate, Mary were in the room as well). Allison, the intruding housemate, with rubber gloves already on her hands, "asks" us to come downstairs and help her clean the refrigerator. I say, "I don't have anything but bread in the fridge." Which is true. I don't make mess here because I hate everyone and want to be left alone as much as possible. Or rather, I keep my mess out of the common areas. How bitchy is it to start cleaning before asking anyone if A) it was advisable considering we're only here for a short time and that there is a cleaning staff who do, admittedly bare minimum cleaning and B) if we had the time or inclination to help her and then demanding that we help because we "live here too?" Pretty bitchy.

I did end up helping some, only because I knew that this other girl would be helping who never asks anyone to help and ends up doing a considerable amount of the cleaning. She's nice so I felt compelled, but I reserved the right to make as many sarcastic comments about the other girl as I pleased. Which, as I had been drinking, were many. The sad part is that she is probably the most attractive girl in the house, and has the yokels downstairs in her thrall. Those poor suckers were slaving away just to see her bending over with a mop in the hopes she'll throw something their way, which she knows, and which she never will. I think there is little worse than a woman using sex to get her way, especially on petty things. I thought seriously about mentioning it, but I figured I do have to live here for another two months and besides they'd just side with her anyway.

So I did a bare minimum of cleaning myself and then plopped on the couch for another hour of tv whilst the sad sappy suckers cleaned around me. I didn't feel bad about that hour - each rotten look I got from the harpy made it worth the wasted time.

And that was my day. I hope yours was more interesting. I'm glad I started writing - I think that was all I needed to do. I know that this wasn't a great essay expounding on human truths, or even one of my better posts, but it actually did feel good to start writing. It's nice to remind myself every now and then that I really do enjoy it. Maybe this'll start a flood. Probably not. Write back.

Peace crackas. I'm out.

-Warnie

there's an ocean between where i am and where i want to be

So the above popular Flogging Molly lyric kept coming to me today. I'm missing Zimbabwe really badly again. There are times when I can almost smell the dirt, and the way the heat beats down, and the laughter from the school kids. I guess what scares me the most is that I don't know if I'll ever go back. Its like my life has been split into two, and I like both paths. I'm definitely going through a "stuck in the middle" time and I always get the same answers when I pray "patience...trust me." Which is funny because those are the things I'm worst at...which is why I need to do them. Anyways I think I'm rambling. But I love the blog, and I love feeling that I'm talking to both of you. Its like we're back at home, me in a chair and you guys sprawled on the floor, just talking about all the things we constantly have bouncing around in our heads. You guys are my best friends, I love you.

Hmmm

No one really seems to be checking this so much anymore - I'll admit that even I've started to slack off a bit. Well, it's ok I guess. It definitely didn't last long as what it was intended to do. So I might as well give up about the improvement of letter writing or the idea that in the future someone might look back and say, you know the wilkins kids wrote thousands of blog posts to each other, if only we could improve the state of correspondence today...Instead we're basically like any other blog except maybe even less focused than most. Yet, Bethy said not to quit, so I'm not quiting just yet. I'm just reconciling to the fact that this was never really the letter improvement service that I imagined it would be.

So instead, I leave you with a picture of pure happiness.

Story Outline...sort of

So, this is kind of a story outline. It's more me trying to nail down my thoughts about a story that I have been thinking about on and off for a couple months, but never seem to get straight in my head. Jack, it's the same fantasy story that we talked about a night that you were home, only now it's not a fantasy story anymore. I wanted to try and make it more Dostoyevskian about faith and human nature. Only I'm not sure if that makes a better story. I think it's a story worth telling, but I'm just not sure exactly how to procede. Let me know what you think.

Two Brothers Story Outline

This is the story that I had originially pictured as a fantasy comicbook, but I think I'm going to try my hand at fiction again. It'll be an historical fiction story, set not in an imaginary world based off of the Holy Roman Empire, but the Holy Roman Empire itself. I want it to be a time of convictions, as well as a time of extreme strife and confusion – there isn't a better time in European history than the 30 years war.

The main two characters are two brothers, the only sons of a free knight. As you know free knights technically owe allegiance to the Emperor alone and not to the more local Princes. However, it is an institution that is dying out by this time, I believe. I should probably check up on that. Anyway, this is about 100 years after Luther and Germany is in chaos with conflict between Catholic and Protestant. I really want to show the conflict at it's worse. Religious conflicts between fundamentalists (and the ignorant people that follow them) very quickly become neighbor against neighbor conflicts, with extreme violence at the local level.

So the younger of these kids is kind of like Dimitri and Alyosha combined. He's athletic, attractive, likes the ladies, fun loving, and yet at the same time he's fundamentally good. He's not afraid of a fight, but he's the first to counsel peace and the first to offer mercy. Mercy is probably his primary characteristic. He believes that people are generally good, and therefore when they do him wrong, he believes it to be a temporary error on their part. He can't imagine that people wouldn't like him because he likes everybody. He idolizes his older brother.

Damn it I can't figure out the exact dynamic that I want between the two brothers. I want one to be pure in the beginning and the other to be obviously less so – more of an ends justify the means kind of guy. Then I want something to happen so that the guy who was pure flips his shit completely and becomes full of hate and revenge. I guess I wanted to explore the close relationship between extreme love and extreme hate – how the extremes of emotion are actually very close to one another. Then again, I don't want to make the passionless guy the hero of the story.

Anyway, so the two brothers go off to war together, joining the protestant cause because I would find it difficult to write from the catholic perspective. At some point they meet a woman of the opposite persuasion with whom they both fall in love, though the older brother tries to deny his feelings because he knows it would not serve his designs. They have a falling out when the younger brother decides to quit the field and marry the woman. Then shit happens to both of them while they are apart. First, the woman is killed by a roving band of thugs claiming to be catholic but really just looting and killing people while the younger brother is away. He therefore flips his shit and decides to go on a rampage. He brings some minor characters, cousins and such perhaps, to his side and begins to lead a small scale war. He doesn't go so far as to murder innocents, but his previously merciful nature is gone and now he offers no quarter to the enemy. Meanwhile the older brother is forced at some point to put his mercenary nature to the test – facing some kind of decision that goes against his upbringing or religion but would advance him politically. He finds that he can't do it. Perhaps he truly finds God at this point and finds that he is not a God of hate and violence but these people have both corrupted him for their ends. Then he sets his sights on his brother's retribution. Maybe I should make the story more about faith. The older brother doesn't become a monster because he finds his faith, the younger brother becomes one because his faith was in goodness not in God.

Ultimately, I've got to figure out a way for it to end well. I think tomorrow I'll just start scening it out and we'll see how far I get. I should do some reading on the time period and pick some names as well.

Where the Hell is Matt outtakes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT8jA_pps3o

This is really fun. Hope this brightens your day!
Bboo

From the Valley

Jack and Warnie,
I have been neglecting my post since I arrived home, merely because I haven't wanted to look at a computer screen since school ended. Most of what I am referring too you wrote about awhile ago but I wanted to contribute all the same. I too have felt "the black dog" on me the last couple of weeks and usually I try to run away from it by throwing myself even farther into my work which only makes it worse. Being at school never helps. I truly believe that Mary Washington is over a vent of hell. It seems that at any point when I am finally starting to relax and feel like I can enjoy myself there, all my confidence is sucked out and I become my worst self. The one that scares me the most.
I was talking to our President the other day and he was talking about the college bus transport system. He was saying how on other campuses he had been on the bus was a lively place full of music and students. "Its just dead," he said looking at me. And of course, without thinking I looked at him and said "You could say that about our entire campus Sir." He looked at me a little surprised and said "Can I keep you around? You seem to tell it like it is." And then he went on to say that he was trying to fix that. But the whole point of that story is to say that that is how I feel in the winter at Mary Washington...dead.
I think that is why I love the valley so much. There is something about this place, a presence of God, that no matter what is going on, I never feel alone. I know that these feelings of loneliness are a result of stress, fatigue, winter being generally gross, some demented form of SAD, and my lack of church going lately (every church I have been to in fredericksburg lately I've gotten so angry that I can't take communion). And at the same time I know that they are utterly necessary. I believe in a lot of what Jack said in his post. Its hard though. This semester has also been a huge lesson in mental strength. There are times when my mind wanders and I know that I do not have the strength to think about those things, but I do it anyway...and i shouldn't. So I have been working on that. Anytime I find myself slipping, I try to refocus on thinking about God or, if I'm being particularly stubborn, at least something happy.
I love this time of year in the Valley though. I am not a spring person, you both know that I am a girl of the sun but there is anticipation here. Everything, the birds,t he trees, and the mountains themselves are quivering with the anticipation of spring...and that makes me happy. Soon it will be time for rebirth, for celebration of Christ rising again, and a time for our spirits, our hearts, and our minds to be cleansed and made anew.
love,
Bboo

Window is Astonished

The above is from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cartoons. It's pretty freakin hilarious. Also, you should check out this video. I think my favorite is England.

Love,
Warnie

Mortality

Now, brother and sister, let us turn in the lectionary to--

existential despair.

This will not be an amusing post for most folks, dear readers, so avert your eyes and view something funny if you will not be frozen in place by the cold that is the human soul.

Actually, I just wished that everyone could hear the voice that is constantly narrating in my head. It would make things a lot easier, and I wouldn't need to explain nearly as much. Experiments in allowing myself to narrate have resulted, mostly, in social dysfunction. So I avoid it.

I understand, Warnie, your emptiness. I think we all do. My situation currently isn't one related to love, but what Winston Churchill called "the black dog" comes down on me fairly frequently as well. It happens more now that I'm writing more--this is not a result of writing, but of forcing myself to more honestly investigate my feelings. As Alan Moore says, to "Be ruthless about this, and submit yourself to as much emotional pain as is necessary...". It brings it out. That's the difficulty with, for lack of a better term, mortality.

The wife (Pockets) and I were taking a spin around with her cousin the other day when I became inexplicably depressed. I was looking at the shoddy construction of the academic buildings here in the frozen north, and longing for marble/granite/stone in the construction, even real brick buildings, not merely brick facade. And suddenly, I saw corruption in everything. Everything was going to wash away and fade, everything was going to die. All the trees were dying as we speak, all the people in their cars were going to die in their stupid little boxes, even I was going to die, and what would I have written on my stone afterwards? I couldn't think of much, but more than that, I saw the fruitlessness of that construction as well. Books burn, buildings crumble, we don't even print on anything that will last more than 60 years without damage anymore.

(If I'd had the ability to look outside myself at the moment, I would have realized that this is a traditional Anglo-Saxon motif in poetry, and that might have pointed me in the right direction for solace--but I couldn't. The whirlpool of the emotion was too strong.)

So, long story short, I was a real mopey jackass for a while there. I snapped out of it enough to be civil for a while, but it wasn't until I went to church on Sunday that I really was able to be lifted out of it. The communal confession started off with, "Forgive us, Lord, as we easily despair." That was a real kick in the gut.

But I got to thinking, of course we do. Of course we despair, because we're right to if we limit ourselves to thinking, well, mortally. And I don't just mean about death, but in a sense of passing, of transition. And it ends up being a lack of faith. I despaired because I could not conceive of a purpose or meaning to life--well, bully for me. I don't have to conceive of a purpose, I merely need to divine His purpose. It's a little trite when put down in a blog, but it's true. And it's more than just an easy fix. I need to fix the eternal present in my mind ALWAYS, to be constantly praying. It's not about fear, like I think many fundamentalists and some of my friends think when they talk about constant prayer. It's...

It's like having your glasses on. It'd be stupid to go around without them, and the world is more beautiful and sharper with them.

So, anyway, that's not really helpful to your situation Warnie. You're in a difficult place and time right now, and your soul is naturally seeking some kind of comfort. I just wanted to say that even having the honest, wonderful companionship of Pockets, I still despair. We all do.

Anyway, good luck. And Boo, send along some pictures of your show.

Jack

I wish I wasn't such a woman

First, I'd just like to point out that the two of you have been sadly lacking in posts lately. Maybe I'm just monopolizing the stage a bit...or maybe you should just write more. Originally I thought this would be more of a back and forth thing.

Second, what follows has a few references to a certain person that's been on my mind lately. Maybe it's juvenile that I feel I need to continue to hide my feelings, but there it is. Consequently, her name has been left out, but I'm sure you both know what I'm talking about. Actually if she did read this, she'd know exactly who I was talking about, but so it goes. Feel free to mock me for being a girl - you know I get that way sometimes.

So...

I woke up today feeling good. I got to see college friends I hadn't seen for half a year last night, and managed to avoid a hangover, which, like Jack said, always feels like an accomplishment after a night of heavy drinking. The general feeling of well-being did not last.

I missed church, which always sets me off a little bit. I feel guilty when I miss church, but more than that church, as it is meant to do, helps me to reconnect with the spiritual and to refocus my thoughts towards God. When I drift away from my primary purpose (self-improvement through internally lining up my will parallel to God's) I tend to slip into a kind of listlessness. I don't mean the melancholy that I have so often written about, but more of an empty, unexplainable boredom and loneliness. I think that I tend towards sadness because it's just the easiest way to alleviate the boredom. When I mope, at least I have something to do.

So of course, soon after happily waking I realized I had nothing to do today and no one to do it with. I started thinking of ----- maybe just to pass the time. Then again, I always am thinking of her these days. This past week I haven't spent much time with her, partly because I hoped that that would help, but it hasn't.

I know if I said something what the answer would be. So why should I say anything? Why should I make it uncomfortable for her too? "If you look at life like rolling a dice, then my situation now, as it stands - yeah, it may only be a 3. If I jack that in now, go for something bigger and better, yeah, I could easily roll a six - no problem, I could roll a 6... I could also roll a 1. OK? So, I think sometimes... Just leave the dice alone."

I've always wanted to be someone's Laurie, you know? I've always wanted to be such good friends with someone that I could come over any time without having to plan ahead, to be friends with the girl's family. I think I could live with being ----'s Laurie, but I don't think she even sees me that way. And since I know she doesn't see me as more, I don't know what that makes me. I'm not sure I can stand just to be a common friend - someone that she may remember fondly but wouldn't make an effort to keep in contact with.

When I step back to try and think about it objectively I couldn't really say why ---- and not someone else. We have some things in common, but there is a lot where we are very different: about important things too.

I think maybe we fall in love when we really just want to be loved in return: love therefore being a reason in itself.

Still, I didn't actually mean to vent about ---- when I started this, just like I didn't actually mean to ruin my day by thinking so much about her. I just meant to describe how I"m incredibly lonely up here and I've got a restless, empty pit in my stomach. I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with ------. But I can't seem to shake it for more than a few days at a time, so I thought I'd write it out of my system, but it hasn't really seemed to help.

To paraphrase a great man - I've got a hole inside and I can never drink enough or steal enough or kill enough to fill it. I know the only thing big enough to fill it is God, but knowing it isn't enough. Why can't I make myself do anything about it?

The Supreme Court and why I want to write nonfiction

Dear Siblings,

I just finished watching All the President's Men for the first time, which, if you haven't seen it, is definitely worth the time. It's apparently a classic that I had never heard of until recently about the journalists who broke the Watergate scandal. It's an inspiring story for any writer (or wannabe): after all it's about how two nobody reporters were able to essentially singlehandedly bring down the Nixon administration. It's not only impressive, but makes me proud to be an american (and a Washington Post reader). In what other country could a corrupt government be brought down, without force, by a single newspaper?

Anyway, as I was thinking about the power of words (and missing my typewriter a bit - hence the font) I started to go over the events of the day in my head. I started this morning early - 6:00 - which as you may or may not know, is before the sun gets up. There's just something not right about getting up before the sun. It's unnatural. I was up because I had plans to make it over to stand in line at the Supreme Court building to get in to hear oral arguments about an upcoming religious liberty case Hein vs. Freedom From Religion Foundation. The case is fairly technical and not all that interesting until you pull back a bit and examine the ramifications. It involves a suit against the government over executive sponsered conferences about community initiatives that were allegedly partial to faith-based groups.

That's actually not the issue at hand though. The case is really testing the court on whether or not taxpayers have standing to sue under the establishment clause of the first amendment. That means (for those of you that didn't go to a discussion panel in order to get it more properly explained) that the debate is whether or not the ordinary taxpayer is injured enough by executive spending to have standing in the courts to sue the government. The government is of course arguing that they do not have standing. You should check out the BJC's position. Be sure to look at the blog if you do - it's got a transcript (kind of funny actually) and lots of surrounding articles.

So I got up at 6:00, and made it to the line outside by 6:30 (most of that time was spent, not getting ready or walking, but convincing my groggy self that it wasn't ok just to go back to sleep and pretend I didn't hear my alarm). According to the green card I got from the nice policeman I was 50th in line. Since they only let 50 of us in, that was pretty handy. They didn't actually let us inside the building until 9:15 or so with the arguments starting at 10:00.

Pretty soon after I got there a kid walked up behind me who immediately started talking to me. I was a little annoyed at first, since I had brought my 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to help me pass the time, but he was a nice enough guy. He seemed uber excited to see the justices, though he didn't know anything about the case and didn't really care. He's a freshman at George Washington and just wanted a celebrity citing I think. We got to talking, which, as you know, is pretty rare for me. It became clear quickly that he was a republican and described himself as a George Bush republican, something that he seemed to think was a dying breed. I'm not so sure that that's true, sadly, but I also am not sure he's really a GW republican but just thinks he is.

He assumed that I, being a Baptist which he found out from where I worked, was also a republican, I think, though I made it clear from the outset just how much of a moderate I really am. As a side note, I find myself playing the roll of true moderate more and more. Even though I'd really think of myself more as fairly liberal leaning I always seem to be explaining one side to another in a political or religious conversation. It's like when I was dating Meghan (always defending Meghan to Mom and Dad and Mom and Dad to Meghan), but on a bigger scale.

We talked a little bit about religous liberty since the opportunity presented itself, and I think I may have sold him on it from the "Nobody can tell me what I should or shouldn't believe" stance. I don't think he had really thought it through before. It's amazing how many Christians don't think about what it would be like if members of some other religion had the power to enforce or even just governmentally support their beliefs.

At some point during the conversation, although he was pretty nice about it, he brought up that he hated that democrats had won the recent elections on negativity: that they had won because they were against something rather than for it. I disagreed as to the extent that he was suggesting and how he was putting all democrats into one lump, when democrats are (as the saying goes) barely an organized political party in the first place, but he had a good point. Only I'd go ahead and apply it to all politics for the last 20 years.

I suppose that if you're against something (the war, a woman's right to choose, whatever) than that implies that you are for it's opposite, but I firmly believe that the way you talk about something matters. I'm so sick of everyone being against the other guy, just because polls have shown that it's more effective. It's more effective because it's easier. It's a Machievellian "better to make the people love you, but since that's hard to do make them fear you instead" approach to politics. Maybe that's smart, but it's bad for the country.

What has happened to our great speeches? What is the last great speech that we can culturally remember? I bet you jump all the way back to Kennedy. There were so many powerful lines that stick with us even today, even among those of us who weren't alive to hear them. They were passionate and importantly they were full of hope. I don't know how great a president kennedy really was, but his words were inspiring. As Charlie says on West Wing - "If they're shooting at you, you must be doing something right." The US government has more potential than any other organization maybe in the history of the world, either for bad or good. Government, Politics should use that potential to inspire us to become better than ourselves. I just want to be caught up in something great, in a period, a movement to which history will look back and say at least they had hope. At least they believed in something. At least they spoke courage and defied the surrounding dark, if only for a little while.

I don't know, I'm getting a little carried away maybe, but that's why I want to do some kind of political writing. I don't know if I have the skills to do that, to write speeches that inspire, or if I'll even get the opportunity, but I know it's what I want to hear, and no one else seems to be doing it.

- Warnie

Crazy Runners

Okay I just thought this was amazing and you guys should check it out. Crazy, but amazing.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/runningthesahara/about.html

Bell towers and alarms

Hello Brothers,
This will probably be a short post because I am absolutely exhausted. This is one of the photos I recently took for our newspaper. It didn't make the final cut but I think that was because another article came up. Anyways its of our new bell tower and I don't know why but I really like it.
I'm quite exhausted and right now I seem to be asking myself "How can I be a photographer, a sculpture, a sister, a girlfriend, and a daughter when I am too tired to be myself or anything else?" I know all this worry and slight depression is just simply that: exhaustion but I'm still letting it get to me a little bit. I saw a funny thing today though. In one of the school buildings there was a sign on the door that said "Door is Alarmed" and then someone had taken a marker and written under it "window is astonished." I don't know why but that cracked me up...maybe its just because I'm weird.
I just got done with my major assessment which doesn't really mean much. However I had to go through most of my work and title it. I never realized how hard it is to title work and not sound retarded. I went through some poems and stuff to try and get ideas but it was still reeeeeeally hard. You come up with things like "entrapment" and "the darkness of my soul." It always gives me a good laugh at myself. I'm starting to ramble. Sorry my entries have been so random and not very thoughtful. I promise to do better.
love to all,
Boo