Ducklings and Big Apples

This weekend was my first weekend actually in Hillsdale and I loved it! Half the house was gone too, for some reason, but lots of good people were around. Amanda, Heather and I watched sisters play in a futsal tournament on Saturday, which was excellent. (Sarah played so well, Rach! Definitely feeling it, though.) I played in that same tournament my sophomore year; we also went to the championships, but lost. (They had a similar schedule to my team's in which they played the last slot and then had to play back-to-back without a rest against a team they already beat. No score comparison or anything, just a final death routine.) Still, it was good soccer.

Not a particularly social weekend, but I did have reading to finish (although reading is never final, more postponed) and a thesis to work on. I had a great Thursday, though: I hung out with a few close friends at the Sandlot Thursday night, including beer tasting with the boys and having a jolly time with the whole group.

I also babysat my adviser's kids Thursday night (most of whom can be seen above; the picture is from Halloween junior year). Of everyone I've met in this little town, I think I am going to miss them the most. Prof. S was my teacher before he was my adviser. I've know his family since the end of my freshman year, so I've watched the kids grow up and get personalities. I call them my little ducklings, the name coming from a game we played my sophomore year. I think we only played it once, but it certainly left an impression. I think it was one of the few non-contact games we've played while babysitting too, now that I come to think of it! :)

Gretchen asked me where I was going to be after graduation, and I said Chicago or Washington, D.C. most likely. Then they all shouted they wanted me in Chicago and Mrs. S said they were going to pray me there (I suppose instead of willing me there), because it's closer and they can come visit. I got really excited at the prospect of them visiting me after college and then remembered I still have a little over three (three?!) months left of college. I go to NYC this weekend for CN fellowship stuff, so I will pray God makes my future according to His will a little more clearer. At the very least, I shall get to see a few old CN friends and go to a city I've never been to before.

Song of the week, introduced to me by Heather, my rooms:


Another reason why Rich Mullins is awesome: "A lot of the stuff which I thought was so different between Protestants and Catholics [was] not, but at the end of going through an RCIA [Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults] course, I also realized that there are some real and significant differences. I'm not sure which side of the issues I come down on. My openness to Catholicism was very scary to me because, when you grow up in a church where they don't even put up a cross, many things were foreign to me. I went to an older Protestant gentleman that I've respected for years and years, and I asked him, "When does faithfulness to Jesus call us to lay aside our biases and when does it call us to stand beside them?" His answer to me was that it is not about being Catholic or Protestant. It is about being faithful to Jesus. The issue is not about which church you go to, it is about following Jesus where He leads you."

Going to NYC will tally into my third weekend not being in Hillsdale in the past 5 weeks. I'll be excited to spend more time in this little snowbank post-New York. At the very least, my thesis demands as such. HF articles are due tomorrow.

I remember running through the wet grass

I'd like to share two of my favorite passages from the short story "Blackberry Winter" by Robert Penn Warren.

This first one comes after the narrator's mother tries to make him wear shoes outside:

"Nobody had ever tried to stop me in June as long as I could remember, and when you are nine years old, what you remember seems forever; for you remember everything and everything is important and stands bigs and full and fills up Time and is so solid that you can walk around and around it like a tree and look at it. You are aware that times passes, that there is a movement in time, but that is not what Time is. Time is not a movement, a flowing, a wind then, but is, rather, a kind of climate in which things are, and when a thing happens it begins to live and keeps on living and stands solid in Time like the tree that you can walk around. And if there is a movement, the movement is not Time itself, any more than a breeze is climate, and all the breeze does is shake a little the leaves on the tree which is alive and solid. When you are nine, you know that there are things you don't know, but you know that when you know something you know it. You know how a thing has been and you know that you can go barefoot in June."

This one makes me think of playing in the woods behind the house I grew up in, but there's more to it than that, which is what makes it so good.

"When you are a boy and stand in the stillness of woods, which can be so still that your heart almost stops beating and makes you want to stand there in the green twilight until you feel your very feet sinking into and clutching the earth like roots and your body breathing slow through its pores like the leaves--when you stand there and wait for the next drop to drop with its small, flat sound to a lower lead, that sound seems to measure out something, to put an end to something, to begin something, and you cannot wait for it to happen and are afraid it will not happen, and then when it has happened, you are waiting again, almost afraid."

More reading, writing and research today. Happy Sunday!

Stationary Saturday

Today will be mostly writing letters and working on my thesis. Let me know if you want one (a letter, not a thesis) and I shall certainly oblige you.

Song of the day:


Also, two more favorites, compliments of The Killers:


Heather calls this "the cowboy video":

The Poem that was Thursday

Today is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas! I read parts of the Summa Theologica for the first time a few days ago for my Conservatism/ Libertarianism Debate class and absolutely loved it. I'll be posting more on the natural law sections in a few days.

Here's a taste of Thomas:

"We can't have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves."

"Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do."

"Wonder is the desire for knowledge."

"Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures. "

Prof. Siegel gave this to us at the beginning of the semester:

"A Student's Prayer" by St. Thomas Aquinas

Creator of all things,
true source of light and wisdom,
origin of all being,
graciously let a ray of your light penetrate
the darkness of my understanding.

Take from me the double darkness
in which I have been born,
an obscurity of sin and ignorance.

Give me a keen understanding,
a retentive memory, and
the ability to grasp things
correctly and fundamentally.

Grant me the talent
of being exact in my explanations
and the ability to express myself
with thoroughness and charm.

Point out the beginning,
direct the progress,
and help in the completion.

I ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Today's poem! Hilarious, if not a little morbid:

"Matilda Who Told Lies, and Was Burned to Death" by Hilaire Belloc

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to Believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not She
Discovered this Infirmity.
For once, towards the Close of Day,
Matilda, growing tired of play,
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe to the Telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid
Of London's Noble Fire-Brigade.
Within an hour the Gallant Band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow
With Courage high and Hearts a-glow
They galloped, roaring through the Town,
'Matilda's House is Burning Down!'
Inspired by British Cheers and Loud
Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;
And took Peculiar Pains to Souse
The Pictures up and down the House,
Until Matilda's Aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed;
And even then she had to pay
To get the Men to go away!
It happened that a few Weeks later
Her Aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that Interesting Play
The Second Mrs Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her Niece
To hear this Entertaining Piece:
A Deprivation Just and Wise
To punish her for Telling Lies.
That Night a Fire did break out –
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street –
(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence) – but all in vain!
For every time She shouted 'Fire!'
They only answered 'Little Liar'!
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.

"Be witness to the most important issues: life, family, conscience."

If you don't know who Robbie George is, you've been missing out. He's phenomenal:



From the website:

The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Oh, and he's pretty awesome on the banjo too: