timewasters

Via Crooked Timber:

in three minutes, the largest dot will travel around the circle once, the next largest dot will travel around the circle twice, the next largest dot three times, and so on.

the dots are arranged to trigger notes on a chromatic scale when they pass the line

Go here to play. The handcrank version wasn't as fun as I expected it to be, but variation 11 was great! Usually if I want to get dizzy in the computer lab I have to spin in my chair- it's nice to have the work taken out of dizziness for once.

Also, these games might be more fun for those of you who read French, but I'm enjoying not knowing how poorly I'm doing.

PS: The only thing worse than being the audio-visual techie at a conference with lots of tech problems is being the audio-visual techie at a conference with almost zero tech needs. I am bored... bored enough to play silly internet games, the directions to which I can't read because they're written in French.

sailing

My dad got a sailboat while I was in high school. It wasn't much of a boat, just big enough for him and me and a lunchbox. We used to take it out on the reservoir near my house, sail it up one way and down the other.

Or, sort of sail. My dad is 5'11'' and big, even now, and he weighed close to 300 pounds at the time. He would sit at the back of the boat and run the mainsail, and I'd sit at the front and run the jib- if we tried it the other way around, the nose of the boat stuck in the water. He'd holler directions at me, I'd get confused, he'd helpfully yell detailed mathematical explainations, I'd get angry, and then we'd run aground somewhere for lunch.

We never actually crashed the boat- I left that job for Kim, when she and Dad were out sailing after I left for college. Once, though, on a particularly windy day, we nearly tipped it.

Ok, I'm sorry, that was boring. Let me try that again, with more salacious detail:

The cold northern wind blew across the resevoir, tossing our small bark upon the waves. Sky gray like sheet metal stretched overhead, scuffed by wrathful, speeding clouds. My father and I wrestled with the wet ropes, shouting over the furiosity of the storm...

That's not at all accurate, although it's more exciting. It was a sunny day, just with a strong wind... and really, the wind wasn't even that strong. I just held on too long.

I mentioned that Dad controlled the mainsail while I controlled the jib. The means of control was a rope threaded through a grommet on the sail, with which I could control the tension of the sail and the direction in which it pointed. Ours was a small boat, though, so when the wind blew particularly hard we would let go the ropes and wait out the gust- too much wind would capsize us.

So, we're 'speeding' down the resevoir, probably not at a particularly fast rate but more quickly and smoothly than we had gone before, when a blast hit us from behind. Dad let go of his rope and told me to let go of mine, but I didn't hear him. The boat pitched foward, then sideways, as my little sail took the brunt of the gust.

"Let go! Let go of the rope!"

I heard Dad, that time, but I couldn't process what he was saying. The boat was at enough of an angle that the mainsail was brushing the water, and my dad was sitting up on the top edge to try to balance it- I had my body braced against the boat, pulling for all I was worth to hold the sail against the wind.

"Let go! You have to let go!"

I could feel my arms (and legs) tiring, and the rope started sliding between my hands. The sail was still taut, and the wind was still driving us foward, but the the rope was slipping, slipping, slipping... and then it was gone. My jib floppped free in the wind, the boat sat suddenly upright in the water, and I fell backward in the boat. My dad, not quite so lucky, fell backward out of the boat.

"Why didn't you let go?"

Dad was annoyedly dogpaddling in the resevoir, as the wind died down, trying to figure how he would get back in the boat. He was annoyed to be unexpectedly on a swim trip, but more so annoyed with me for having ignored clear and sensible instruction. He tossed the lunchbox back into the boat and repeated himself:

"Why didn't you let go?"

For the same reason that I still hold things, I guess. I was too busy playing tug-of-war with the wind to hear or realize that holding on was the problem, not the solution. The blisters on my hands were not only hard won, but useless.

So, an odd story, and I don't doubt it makes more sense when I tell it than when I write it. But there it is.

the song in my head

I love rock and roll!
...and something-or-other about a... jukebox, baby!

I don't know the rest of the song, and no matter how many times I look up the lyrics I forget again exactly what is going on with the jukebox. So it's just those two lines, incomplete and looping in my head.

Perhaps ironically, this song fragment makes me hate rock and roll.

Last night was more fun, though- I pulled the Audio Adrenaline out of hiding, cranked it and danced in my living room to Underdog:*

I am so weak and I'm so tired
It's hard for me to
Find enough strength to feed the fires
That fuel my ego
And consequently all my pride has up and died
Which leaves me
Down on my knees
Back to the place I
Should have started from...

I'd put a dime in a jukebox for Audio Adrenaline, any day.

Unfortunately, this version of the lyrics doesn't transcribe the sermon out of the middle, which is the awesomest part of all.

oh no!

No more New Pantagruel. I feel like I should hold a calling hours.

"We believe life is eucatastrophic: a joyous catastrophe." That's a good epitaph.

Oh, and I updated the list of articles on the right, if you're interested. Are the headers in ridiculously large type? I've been trying to make them smaller, but now I'm wondering if it's just the ESR computers that make them look so big.

milk

Via What Would Jesus Blog: Buy your milk at Amazon.com

Or don't, but do read the reviews.

However, when I put that cold, white substance to my lips...
...Well, lets just say that I passed out to to the overwhelming almost-ninja-like greatness. It made me splash all the water out of the tub. My mom told me to stop.

This milk was so good, I passed out. When I woke up 3 weeks later, apes ruled the earth.

This milk tastes pure, wholesome, and makes me ecstatic toward the world in general.

This milk was prescribed to me by my spiritual leader. Each week we order gallons and gallons of this Milk and bless it. Once it is blessed we pour it all into tubs so that we can baptize and save members of our congregation.

Like i haven't felt this good since eating 'shrooms with my peanut butter in 78'!

Wacky people.

I've posted this already

...but it's been on my mind again.

Lot's Wife

They had no time—the just man
hurried across the bridge,
followed God’s magistrate
along the black ridge.

His grieving wife lagged behind
as if she had no will,
arms heavy with useless things,
heart heavier still.

She couldn’t recall if she’d shut the door,
turned off the iron; worse guilt,
she’d left behind the baby pictures,
her mother’s ring, her wedding quilt.

One arm raised as if to gather
her whole life in that embrace,
tears blurring the view,
without much thought she turned her face,

became what she had shed. Who grieves
for this nameless woman, Lot’s reflective wife?
I grieve.
I know holding on can cost a life.

quote 2

And clue 1: It's not a Christmas book.

That's what liberty is, I thought. To have a passion, to amass pieces of gold and suddenly to conquer one's passion and throw the treasure to the four winds.

Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an ideal, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the tether of our slavery? Then we can enjoy ourselves and frolic in a more spacious arena and die without having come to the end of our tether. Is that, then, what we call liberty?

the song in my head

By the time I get home tonight, I'll have walked from my apartment to school and back three times. I usually try to be more organized, but it's been one of those days.

"One of those days" is a vague phrase, you say? Well, here's a detail: I ate gas station food. Twice. In fact, that's all I ate.

This song has been in my head all day, which means that I've not just been walking down South A street, I've been dancing. It's got a good beat, and the more I sing it in my head, the more my hips start to move.

The downside is probably that I look like an idiot, but the upside is that no cars have come near to hitting me today. Apparently I'm making enough of a spectacle of myself to be obvious to all drivers in the area.

And I'll not prepare my heart for the change of season.
And I'll whip old Winter Wind there if she blows, if she blows.
Well, God bless the day that you came along and you tipped my apple cart.
And you made me hotter than Mojave in my heart.

Off to finish my sermon!

pre-Christmas literary guessing game

Tell me the name of the novel:

"Eat and drink," he continually shouted. "Eat and drink, boss, and get warmed up! You sing too, my boy, sing like the shepherds: 'Glory to the highest!... Glory to the lowest...' Christ in born, that's a terrific thing, you know. Pipe up with your song and let God hear you and rejoice."

He had quite recovered his spirits, and there was no stopping him.

"Christ is born, my wise Solomon, my wretched pen-pusher! Don't go picking things over with a needle! Is He born or isn't He? Of course He's born, don't be daft. If you take a magnifying-glass and look at your drinking water- an engineer told me this, one day- you'll see, he said, the water's full of little worms you couldn't see with your naked eye. You'll see the worms and you won't drink. You won't drink and you'll curl up with thirst. Smash your glass, boss, and the little worms'll vanish and you can drink and be refreshed!"

pumpkin cream

I bought a cup of coffee and a sausage sandwich today at the gas station. Both were adventures, and neither was totally a disappointment. The sandwich was heavyladen with greasy, sugary wonderfulness, and the coffee was, in a word, caffeinated.

Purity is usually essential to me, in evaluating a cup of coffee. I never muck mine up with cream and sugar, and certainly not with non-dairy cream and fake sugar. Cream goes on oatmeal, and sugar goes in cookies (and gas station sandwiches); coffee is a blessed moment set aside for caffeine alone.

Except today. Today, I was lured by the vast, colorful display of little creamer cups in the rack beside the go-lids. Pink ones, green ones, blue ones... I do love color. There were the old standards- French Vanilla, Irish Cream, Hazelnut- the stolid creamer flavors that add stability to an ever-changing world.

Mixed in among the standards, though, were newfangled oddities like Cinnamon Hazelnut and Pumpkin Spice. "Pumpkin Spice!" I thought. I free associated: coffee-> hot drinks-> Mormons-> college-> Java 101-> chai! That was it- chai always makes me think of pumpkin pie, which I love! Maybe, just maybe, my coffee could taste like pumpkin pie, too? I poured in two creamers with bated breath, and waited for the concoction to cool.

Of course, I didn't experience the rapturous delight for which I had been stoking myself. Pumpkins are good, sugar is good, and coffee is superb, but they don't all go in the same cup. I missed the bitter bite of my old friend- nothing washes down greasy sausage like black gas station coffee.

I may have to walk back to the gas station for a plain cup of coffee, just to wash the sugary taste out of my mouth. However, my return trip to Speedway will be as a more experienced person, wiser for having learned an important lesson about being true to myself. I must not be swayed by the pressures of this world, no matter how colorful and potentially promising they may be. I am a woman who likes her coffee black, and while openness to new experiences is to be appreciated, in the end I still like my coffee black. And it was good.

I'm preaching tomorrow in chapel, using a version of the same sermon that I preached at home. I should be revising and practicing... but I'm considering offering a five minute testimony on the importance of integrity in hot drink choices and then leaving the rest of the meeting for silence.

co-op people

It's raining, again. I assume that it will continue to rain until I get my truck fixed, not because this makes sense but because walking long distances in cold rain puts me in the mood to assume such things.

I'm afraid I'm coming down with a cold, so I've been bundling a bit. I have on a long-sleeved dark blue tee-shirt, a short sleeved turquoise polo, and wore a pink hooded fleece and a gray fleece overtop for the walk to school, even though my arms couldn't move freely behind all the layers. More ricidulously, though, I'm wearing a light blue knit cap. Everywhere.

It works, usually- keeping my head warm keeps me from getting sick. I just feel a bit odd wearing a winter hat indoors, when it's only October and the heat is on anyway.

Today, though, I was told that I look like "one of those co-op people," which reframes my silly hat as a fashionable alliance with forces of economic justice and good wraps. Perhaps I'll even be happy about the rain, now; I bet co-op people like the rain.

First, though, I'm going out for ice cream. This will not help my cold in the least, but time spent talking with friends is always good.

dirty word alert

Link.

On a cleaner note, I liked these two Reverend Fun cartoons, too.

belated friday fies

1) Trucks that won't start.
2) Walking to work in the cold.

That pretty much covers Friday.

Today's my mom's birthday, so I had a good chat with my dad on the phone. And when I say 'good,' what I mean is 'depressing.' We spent the whole time talking about the various truck parts that may or may not be broken, and whether or not they'd be worth fixing.

It's a bit like hospice- at what point do you stop providing care and simply let the truck die in peace?

So, a malfunctioning celluloid on the clutch wouldn't be so bad to fix. If the relay between the battery and the starter is broken, that would also be worth fixing. If, however, it's the expensive little computer on top of the... (I blanked out, here. I really hope it's not the expensive little computer, wherever it might be located.)

Most depressingly, it's not the belt that I knew was going bad. I didn't really think it was- the alternator wouldn't be running if the belt was bad- but I kept hoping anyway. This means that I have to fix both the newest mystery problem and the belt.

Fie.

let it be, let it be

This song has been in my head all day:
And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

It finally sunk in, yesterday, that my apartment is a wreck. And not my usual 'oh my gracious, it's so messy' when I've just got stacks of books and papers on all the available chairs, either. 'Wreck' as in 'still haven't really unpacked from being in NY, and haven't cleaned since.'

I did do laundry, though. Maybe that will inspire me to hang my clothes in the closet.

wittenburg door

Answer this mad lib in the comments:

O (Title) of my (Noun)
(Title), when I (Verb) your (Noun)
Something in my (Body Part) just (Verb)
And I can't (Verb) anymore
When I'm in the (Noun)
I know your (Body Part/Noun) (Verb) me
And I know I'm gonna (Blank) (Title) (Period of Time)

(Title), You're so (Adjective)
(Title), You're so (Adjective)
(Title), You're more (Adjective) than anything I've ever (Verb) before
And I'm gonna (Verb) You (Period of Time)
I'm gonna (Verb) You (Period of Time)
Because you're (Adjective), you're so (Adjective)
I wish I had the words to say

That I'm (Reaction) by Your (Divine Attribute)
I'm (Reaction) by Your (Divine Attribute)
I can't (Verb) that You would (Verb) for (Title)
And even if the (Noun) can't (Verb)
And I can't (Verb) Your (Body Part)
I'll still (Verb) You with all my (Body Part/Noun) for (Period of Time)
(Verb) with all my (Body Part/Noun) for (Period of Time)....


Verbs
see, hear, feel, touch, taste, realize, acknowledge, praise, comfort, run, hold, forgive, live, accept, die, shout, sing, dance, tell, bleed, cry, call, stand, believe, trust, say, take, abandon, forsake, wash, live, dwell, find, rejoice, proclaim, walk, clothe, smile, tremble

Body Parts
hands, feet, face, eyes, heart, spirit, lips, ears, wounds, tongue

Nouns
wind, nails, cross, hill, mountain, valley, stream, sea, river, lightning, tree, stone, grass, bird, field, child, shelter, throne, angels, world, storm, thunder, tears, temple, sake, might, power, above, deaf, dumb, shadow, presence, sins, grief

Titles
I, You, Your, His, Lord, God, we, Savior, Redeemer, Messiah, Lamb, Lion, King, Shepherd, Keeper, Alpha, Omega, Beginning, End

Period of Time
always, now, forever, tonight, tomorrow, yesterday, never, thousand

Adjectives
amazing, wonderful, bigger, mighty, righteous, holy, clean, powerful, loving, merciful, full of grace, kind, caring, good, worthy, just, incredible, small, weak, alone, tired, angry, peaceful

---------------
Also, this made me think of reading Henri Nouwen:

Never ever use
Someone else's woundedness
As a booty call.

nietzsche family circus

Way too much time this morning has been occupied with this:
The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote.


The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies,
but to hate his friends



This is the hardest of all:
to close the open hand out of love,
and keep modest as a giver.



To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding;
one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience;
ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.

you know you're a nerd when...

a list of 50 books provides you with material for reminiscing.

The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind: "Few people have accused evangelicalism of being an intellectual movement—but now we feel bad about it, at least."
(Someday, when I'm in charge of evangelicalism, everyone will think it's for nerds. Until then...)

Desiring God: "Who expected a Calvinist Baptist to redeem hedonism for Christ?"
(Who, indeed?)

The Cross and the Switchblade: "Amazing things started happening when, in 1958, a country preacher arrived—Bible in hand and Holy Spirit in heart—in the ghettos of New York City. Christian Retailing reports that 'more than 50 million copies are in print in 40-plus languages of the book that gave birth to the ministry of Teen Challenge.'"
(I read this book over and over, in high school.)

All We're Meant To Be: "Scanzoni and Hardesty outlined what would later blossom into evangelical feminism. For better or for worse, no evangelical marriage or institution has been able to ignore the ideas in this book."
(One of the most exciting books I read in undergrad.)

A Wrinkle In Time: "Madeleine L'Engle told CT that when she tried to be a Christian with her "mind only," she ceased to believe. But then she realized that God was a storyteller. Her 1962 classic modeled the power of imagination to energize belief."
(Still on my bookshelf, alongside the rest of the series.)

The Cost of Discipleship: "'Although cheap grace has entered into the common vocabulary of evangelicals,' says theologian Roger Olson, 'the full weight of Bonhoeffer's exploration of true Christian discipleship has yet to be borne by many of us.' Translated into English in 1949, Bonhoeffer's classic remains a devastating critique of comfortable Christianity."
(Not on my bookshelf beside Life Together, because I loaned it to a friend and never got it back. Someday, when I have endless wads of moolah to spend at the bookstore...)

The Divine Conspiracy "With this call to discipleship, 'Willard joins the line of Thomas a Kempis, Luther, Fenelon, Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, Zinzendorf, Wesley, Frank Laubach, Dorothy Day, and other master apprentices of Jesus,' wrote Books and Culture editor John Wilson in a review, praising the University of Southern California professor's "philosophical depth" and 'penetrating understanding of Scripture.'"
(I got this book for Christmas one year as a teenager; my mom asked me to pick a book out of a catalog, and I chose one that looked like a mystery. Divine love is a mystery, right?)

What's So Amazing About Grace?: "With trademark self-deprecation, Yancey wrote: 'Grace comes free of charge to people who do not deserve it, and I am one of those people. I think back to who I was—resentful, wound tight with anger, a single hardened link in a long chain of ungrace learned from family and church. Now I am trying in my own small way to pipe the tune of grace. I do so because I know... that any pang of healing or forgiveness or goodness I have ever felt comes solely from the grace of God.'"
(This book usually gets stocked in the inspirational section of the Christian bookstore, which I don't visit often. I loved it, though.)

The God Who Is There: "'This book, and its companion volumes, accomplished something startling and necessary: It made intellectual history a vital part of the evangelical mental landscape, opening up the worlds particularly of art and philosophy to a subculture that was suspicious and ignorant of both,' writes John Stackhouse, professor of theology and culture at Regent College."
(Also not on my bookshelf, but should be. The Mark of the Christian is, though, and I'd gladly loan it out even if I knew it wouldn't be coming back- Schaeffer is that good.)

I've read other books on the list, but these are my favorites. When I try to explain to my ESR friends that yes, evangelicals do have scholars and novelists, and we're not just a bunch of illiterate hobos on the religion train, these are some of the folks I'm talking about.

complaint

I've been at ESR for a year. In this time, the only memories I have of clean bathrooms in the classroom building occured when a student cleaned them. The soap containers are consistently almost empty, the stalls consistently short on toilet paper, the mirrors dirty and the floors sticky.

I'm not complaining about that. I'm a Pentecostal, I believe in the gift of healing; what use do I have for sanitary conditions?

But today, the day on which I needed to leave the computer lab to make use of the facilities, the restroom across the hall was being cleaned. What?! This is an unheard of catastrophe. So, I ran downstairs to the other ladies' loo,... dum dum dee dum... but the door was blocked open because the floor had just been mopped.

People, shiny mirrors and filled soap dispensers mean nothing to me if I can't achieve my primary goal in visiting the john. I think we need to have some communal truth-telling about our priorities concerning public restrooms, and then everyone needs to agree with me that the most important thing is that one or the other of them be accessible at all times.

Unrelatedly, I'm trying not to find this funny, by which I mean posting it here so that you can embarrassedly laugh with me.
Oooohhh man I'm so hung over and I've got to be on a taco in Fresno in an hour...
I'll have to play with the beer foam at the Roadhouse tonight to see if I can get it to do that.

in my email this morning

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds...
-Hebrews 10:22-24

haven't had a poem in a while

Pablo Neruda - Ode To Broken Things

Things get broken
at home
like they were pushed
by an invisible, deliberate smasher.
It's not my hands
or yours
It wasn't the girls
with their hard fingernails
or the motion of the planet.
It wasn't anything or anybody
It wasn't the wind
It wasn't the orange-colored noontime
Or night over the earth
It wasn't even the nose or the elbow
Or the hips getting bigger
or the ankle
or the air.
The plate broke, the lamp fell
All the flower pots tumbled over
one by one. That pot
which overflowed with scarlet
in the middle of October,
it got tired from all the violets
and another empty one
rolled round and round and round
all through winter
until it was only the powder
of a flowerpot,
a broken memory, shining dust.

And that clock
whose sound
was
the voice of our lives,
the secret
thread of our weeks,
which released
one by one, so many hours
for honey and silence
for so many births and jobs,
that clock also
fell
and its delicate blue guts
vibrated
among the broken glass
its wide heart
unsprung.

Life goes on grinding up
glass, wearing out clothes
making fragments
breaking down
forms
and what lasts through time
is like an island on a ship in the sea,
perishable
surrounded by dangerous fragility
by merciless waters and threats.

Let's put all our treasures together
-- the clocks, plates, cups cracked by the cold --
into a sack and carry them
to the sea
and let our possessions sink
into one alarming breaker
that sounds like a river.
May whatever breaks
be reconstructed by the sea
with the long labor of its tides.
So many useless things
which nobody broke
but which got broken anyway.