Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus’ feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying.

As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, "Who was it that touched me?" When all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!" But Jesus said,"Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me." And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her,"Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace."

While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler’s house came and said, "Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more." But Jesus on hearing this answered him, "Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well." And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and mourning for her, but he said, "Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping."And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But taking her by the hand he called, saying,"Child, arise." And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given her to eat. And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.

Gospel of Luke 8:40-55

jairus represents the rabbis, perhaps even the pharisees, who know Yahweh's promise but lack faith. his daughter is Israel, dead in her sin while he, faithless, is unable to help her. the woman with a discharge is the Gentiles, unclean and cut off, left helpless despite all the wealth she has wasted searching for life in her gods. yet she has faith, this woman covered in red (her blood) like rahab and the proverbs woman, and this faith makes her well. she too is a daughter, just as jairus' child is.

The sons born to Hezron were: Jerahmeel, Ram and Caleb. Ram was the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, the leader of the people of Judah. Nahshon was the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz...

according to the legends of the rabbis, Nahshon was beside Moses as he led the people of Israel out of Egypt. when they arrived at the red sea, the armies of pharaoh were close behind. the fiery tornado came down from heaven, keeping pharaoh's men back from the people, and Nahshon asked Moses where the people were to go. Moses told the people to watch for the salvation of Yahweh. Nahshon looked down from the cliff they stood on into the raging red sea below them. he turned to Moses and asked, "Yahweh will open the sea for us?" Moses nodded his head and raised his staff over the sea, and immediately Nahshon jumped off the cliff. he landed in shallow water and walked further into the sea, until at last only his head remained out of the water, but still he walked. when his nostrils went under water, the wind came down from Yahweh and split the sea in two before him.

this, they say, is why Nahshon is the first elder to bring an offering to Yahweh, and how he received his name, which means "stormy sea-waves." Nahshon's descendants include David, Solomon, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah (though we know them as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), and Jesus Christ.

"Then [Aaron] killed the ox and the ram, the sacrifice of peace offerings for the people. And Aaron’s sons handed him the blood, and he threw it against the sides of the altar."

leviticus 9:18

When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it. And she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out of the window. And as Jehu entered the gate, she said, "Is it peace, you Zimri, murderer of your master?" And he lifted up his face to the window and said, "Who is on my side? Who?" Two or three eunuchs looked out at him. He said, "Throw her down." So they threw her down. And some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled on her.... "This is the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, 'In the territory of Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel, and the corpse of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the field in the territory of Jezreel, so that no one can say, This is Jezebel.'"

2 kings 9:30-37

"With Domitian, only forty years later, it had bcome a convention of polite speech to hail the emperor as dominus et deus, 'my lord and god.'"

christianity and classical culture by thomas cochrane, 142.

"And Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'"

john 20:28

we win. domitian was assassinated, and damnatio memoriae passed on him by the senate. our Dominus et Deus lives.

"Vae! Puto deus fio."

("Well what do you know. I think I'm becoming a god."

translation mine)

the roman emperor vespasian, on his death bed. vespasian was putting down revolts in judea the late 60s aD when another general, vitellius, marched on rome and was defeated. the senate named vespasian emperor to avert civil war. as emperor, he patroned the arts like few others, built the colosseum, and caused much scandal when it was reported that he took off his own boots. needless to say, he was rather dubious about the deification of emperors.

to continue on a theme...

where, indeed. apparently not anywhere near the Bouffant Galaxy.

via mostly forbidden, an almost entirely wonderful site.

my grandfather's skin is tired of trying

to clutch his bones together.

they are heavy with memories,

memories packed thick and weighty,

weightier, even, than the cancer.

his blood is threadbare and worn

out. it wants to get back to the earth

where it can quietly curl up

in ever-drying circles and rest,

and now his veins can't keep it back.

his portion of dust has spent

the length of its lease, and

wastes with homesickness

for the earth from which it came.

now, the blinder-scales have fallen off.

now, thrice-born, re-clothed, re-made, re-newed,

now re-knit from flesh without the smell of death,

he walks above, across a river we cannot pass.

to disappear from our still-blindered sight.

my grandfather eats with us no more, for now,

for he must supper with the Lamb.

may, 2010.

as for this epicurean account of yours, it is utter eyewash, hardly worthy of the old women who spin yarns by candlelight.

cotta, in cicero's de natura deorum, i.94

"the longer i ponder the question, the darker i think is the prospect of a solution."

simonides, as quoted by cicero in de natura deorum, i.60

the wicked flee when no one pursues,

but the righteous are bold as a lion.

proverbs 28:1

i feel like this is a pretty accurate diagnosis and solution of all my problems with making decisions.

[The courageous man] does not run into trifling dangers, nor is he fond of danger, because he honors few things; but he will face great dangers, and when he is in danger he is unsparing of his life, knowing that there are conditions on which life is not worth having.

aristotle, nicomachean ethics

props to cs

this.

some of which is what i've been up to recently. that and talking greek. οἴμοι.

"Paracelsus" was the Latin pen name of Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim.

Hohenheim died in Salzburg in 1541 at the age of 48. "He was a Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist" (wiki, emphasis mine). He gave the element zinc its name, and is credited as being the first systematic botanist. He was the first to synthesize laudanum, later to become the opiate of choice for much of Europe's aristocracy. He also invented the alphabet of the Magi, used to engrave the names of angels on talismans.

now. tell me that isn't the greatest thing you've heard in while. i dare you.

via wikipedia and danny r. inexpressible gratitude.

well, that about sums it up.

via vintage_ads

For teaching, of course, true eloquence consists, not in making people like what they disliked, nor in making them do what they shrank from, but in making clear what was obscure...

st. augustine, on christian teaching, iv.11

If heroes like Goethe and Schiller could not succeed in breaking open the enchanted gate which leads into the Hellenic magic mountain ...

friedrich nietzsche, the birth of tragedy (p. 75)

"hellenic magic mountain" is with no doubt at all one of the five best phrases of all time, by any standard, and under any judge.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! --- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime ---

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,---

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

by wilfred owen

contrary to the shrill comment strings on every website i've seen this poem on, the title means "sweet and honorable it is," being the first phrase of the line of horace that ends the poem: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: "sweet and honorable it is to die for one's country" (patria literally meaning fatherland).

this, i believe, is why Christianity died in so much of europe. our children asked for bread, and we (the Church) gave them gas bombs and ypres. we thought like the enemy did, and placed our trust in chariots, peace treaties, and the unalienable rights of men rather than in God. but that's just me.

taken on Pensacola Beach. and we think our oil is important.

hats off to JGib10.

"you fancy me mad. could a madman have outsmarted the greatest electronica/techno artists of our generation? next to fall will be Roderick Usher's house/trance band. "

via xkcd

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.


Psalm 30:5

O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent.

jeremiah 5:3 esv

Modern Westerners cannot seem to grasp that anything beyond economics and politics could motivate contemporary acts of terrorism or the internal and international policies of other cultures. We have forgotten that our own forefathers quite willingly killed and accepted death on the basis of religious commitments.

from the european reformations by carter lindberg

Some weeks I think I have it tough.. but then I think.. "at least I don't have a maggot living in my head." It's all a matter of perspective.

this exactly captures my thoughts for this week so much better than i ever could have.

quoted from erin h

His Wife

My wife is not afraid of dirt.


She spends each morning gardening,


stooped over, watering, pulling weeds,


removing insects from her plants


and pinching them until they burst.


She won’t grow marigolds or hollyhocks,


just onions, eggplants, peppers, peas –


things we can eat. And while she sweats


I’m working on my poetry and flute.


Then growing tired of all that art,


I’ve strolled out to the garden plot

and seen her pull a tomato from the vine


and bite into the unwashed fruit


like a soft, hot apple in her hand.


The juice streams down her dirty chin


and tiny seeds stick to her lips.


Her eye is clear, her body full of light,


and when, at night, I hold her close,


she smells of mint and lemon balm.

— Andrew Hudgins

via among the pines

Forty-five years ago Lyndon Johnson was President of the United States. Art Buchwald wrote the following:

“As soon as the President finished his State of the Union speech, I was ordered to get some public reaction. So I immediately called my father in Forest Hills, New York, and asked him what he thought of all the things the President wanted to do (The Great Society).

“If he’s got the money,” my father said, “let him go ahead.”

“I don’t think he has the money, Pop.”

“I knew there was a catch to it.”

via Pastor Jim Wilson

Scenes From "Loomis The Apophatic."

On Valentine’s Day of the following year, two men dressed as British colonial soldiers arrived at the hotel to deliver Loomis a large black velvet box wrapped in layer and layers of white ribbon, pink ribbon and one frail strand of gold rope, tied in a small bow at the top.

A table from the restaurant was cleared and brought quickly to the lobby, the box placed on top. At three o’clock in the afternoon, the guests of the hotel had finished eating, gone off to see Los Angeles, leaving the hired help with their hands free. A small crowd of chefs and waitresses, bus boys, bell hops and maids gathered around as Loomis began untying the ribbon. Someone called for him to use scissors, but Loomis looked horrified at the suggestion. Everything she gave him must be preserved perfectly.

For half an hour he unwound, then fitted the ends back through their knots, until finally the box lay bare. He lifted the lid and the congress of onlookers compressed around him, on the heights of their tip-toes, like ballerinas.

Loomis pulled out huge fists of basil leaves, heaping them on the floor for several minutes, and then he jangled his index finger at the concierge, who stepped forward. Together, they lifted out a massive leather bound book that smelled of the herb, but of mint, too. The volume, recently oiled for sheen, was twice as thick as the hotel guest book and broad enough to use as a shield.

“Oh, mon dieu,” yelled a chef, stepping back aghast.

“What?” said Loomis, setting the book down.

“I’ve seen that book before,” said the chef, removing his toque.

Loomis stepped back so that all could see. He bent over to look at the spine, his face very near the book.

“It’s a Gutenberg Bible,” said the chef, and the crowd began to mutter and chat to itself regarding this claim.

“It is worth more than this entire hotel.”

“Quiet!” called Loomis suddenly and the crowd complied.

The little troupe of workers stared at Loomis, their mouths shut. He leaned down and rested his ear on the cover of the book, in much the way a spy listens through a door. His eyes narrowed in concentration, then he announced, incredulous of his own words, “I hear wings.”

Standing aright, he grabbed hold of the cover and threw it open, then sprang forth from the book’s hollowed out guts a great gust of moths— broad winged Atlas moths larger than crows, and pale green Luna moths, Death’s-head Hawkmoths to terrify and Madagascan sunset moths to delight, White Witch moths, Emperor Gum moths, heavy Bogong moths that fled off immediately to restaurant candles and returned in the lobby moments later aflame yet flying, slowing burning into ashes and fluttering to the floor, elegant Polyphemus moths, Titan Sphinx moths and schools of Rosy Maple moths no bigger than your thumbnail that dashed around the room like tiny fish in the ocean.

via the great gibsby

When I see a snake, I go overboard like Peter … when he went overboard.

dr. g. wilson, natural history lecture, march 24 2010

You have seen hail, sometimes, leveling the grass. Indians were so leveled by the bullet hail. . . . Children crying with cold. No fire. There could be no light. Everywhere was crying, the death wail.

yellow wolf, a chief of the nez perce

‘Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.’ -Isaiah xlv. 15

God, though to Thee our psalm we raise


No answering voice comes from the skies;


To Thee the trembling sinner prays

But no forgiving voice replies;

Our prayer seems lost in desert ways,

Our hymn in the vast silence dies.

We see the glories of the earth

But not the hand that wrought them all:

Night to a myriad worlds gives birth,

Yet like a lighted empty hall

Where stands no host at door or hearth

Vacant creation’s lamps appal.

We guess; we clothe Thee, unseen King,

With attributes we deem are meet;

Each in in his own imagining


Sets up a shadow in Thy seat;

Yet know not how our gifts to bring,


Where seek Thee with unsandalled feet.

And still th’unbroken silence broods

While ages and while aeons run,

As erst upon chaotic floods

The Spirit hovered ere the sun

Had called the seasons’ changeful moods

And life’s first germs from death had won.

And still th’abysses infinite

Surround the peak from which we gaze.


Deep calls to deep, and blackest night


Giddies the soul with blinding daze

That dares to cast its searching sight


On being’s dread and vacant maze.

And Thou art silent, whilst Thy world

Contends about its many creeds

And hosts confront with flags unfurled

And zeal is flushed and pity bleeds


And truth is heard, with tears impearled,


A moaning voice among the reeds.

My hand upon my lips I lay;


The breast’s desponding sob I quell;


I move along life’s tomb-decked way

And listen to the passing bell

Summoning men from speechless day

To death’s more silent, darker spell.

Oh! till Thou givest that sense beyond,

To shew Thee that Thou art, and near,

Let patience with her chastening wand

And lead me child-like by the hand


If still in darkness not in fear,

Dispel the doubt and dry the tear.

Speak! whisper to my watching heart


One word-as when a mother speaks

Soft, when she sees her infant start,

Till dimpled joy steals o’er its cheeks.

Then, to behold Thee as Thou art,


I’ll wait till morn eternal breaks.

nondum, by gerard manley hopkins.

this may be my best, maybe my only answer to this.

Well folks, you say "potato," I say "you go straight to hell!" This is tip of the hat/wag of the finger!

steven colbert

colbert report, april 7 2010

Levon wears his war wound like a crown

He calls his child Jesus

`Cause he likes the name

And he sends him to the finest school in town

Levon, Levon likes his money

He makes a lot they say

Spends his days counting

In a garage by the motorway

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day

When the New York Times said God is dead

And the war's begun

Alvin Tostig has a son today

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

And he shall be Levon

In tradition with the family plan

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

He shall be Levon

Levon sells cartoon balloons in town

His family business thrives

Jesus blows up balloons all day

Sits on the porch swing watching them fly

And Jesus, he wants to go to Venus

Leaving Levon far behind

Take a balloon and go sailing

While Levon, Levon slowly dies

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day

When the New York Times said God is dead

And the war's begun

Alvin Tostig has a son today

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

And he shall be Levon

In tradition with the family plan

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

He shall be Levon

levon, by elton john, lyrics by bernie taupin.

this duo is responsible for the best lyrical poetry in popular music in the last 50 years, with possible exceptions including (but not limited to) paul simon.

In other words, evangelicals seem to be inherently inconsistent, striking a pose at once adaptable and rigid, progressive and conservative, modern and old-fashioned, at ease and at odds with American ideals. The result of these apparent anomalies is a religion that on Sunday is comfortable with the church looking like the world (such as [Contemporary Christian Music]) and throughout the rest of the week insists that the world look like the church (as in family values.)

D.G. Hart

that old-time religion in modern america, pg. 215.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

robert anson heinlein

via 1001 rules for my unborn son

via ckck

A Mid-February Sky Dance

Dance toward me, please, as


if you were a star


with light-years piled


on top of your hair,


smiling,

and I will dance toward you


as if I were darkness


with bats piled like a hat


on top of my head.


~Richard Brautigan

via stillbeating

this makes me think of just about all of my male friends. mostly rtn, rMcG, wss, tk, ta, ch. a lot of ch.

via xkcd

via stillbeating

via vicerag

an invention patented in 1979 which catches birds and dispenses them into a cage which allows cats to eat them at their leisure.

via forbes

GQ recently did a slideshow of the 50 most stylish cars in the last 50 years. with a few of their choices i quibble. most of them, not so much.

but these cars ... these cars. absolutely gorgeous. i make no apologies for this list. it is obviously my taste, disirregardless of what time period they come from. and so it probably reveals some character flaw that three of the five are from the

last 15 years.

the ferrari 308 GTB

the jaguar XKE (1969), called by Enzo Ferrari "the most beautiful car ever made."

the bmw z8 (1999 - 2005)

the audi a5/s5 (2008 - present)

the aston martin db9 -- perhaps my favorite car of all time

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.


It’s the same when love comes to an end,


or the marriage fails and people say 


they knew it was a mistake, that everybody 


said it would never work. That she was


old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly. 


Like being there by that summer ocean 


on the other side of the island while 


love was fading out of her, the stars 


burning so extravagantly those nights that 


anyone could tell you they would never last. 


Every morning she was asleep in my bed


like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist. 


Each afternoon I watched her coming back 


through the hot stony field after swimming, 


the sea light behind her and the huge sky 


on the other side of that. Listened to her 


while we ate lunch. How can they say 


the marriage failed? Like the people who 


came back from Provence (when it was Provence) 


and said it was pretty but the food was greasy. 


I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, 


but just coming to the end of his triumph.

— Jack Gilbert

via among the pines

Beach Attitudes

Blessed is the beach, survivor of tides.



And blessed the litter of crown conchs and pen shells, the dead


blue crab in all its electric raiment.



Blessed the nunneries of skimmers,


scuttering and rising, wheeling and falling and settling, ruffling


their red and black-and-white habits.


And blessed be the pacemakers and the peacemakers,



the slow striders, the arthritic joggers, scarred and bent under


their histories, for they’re here at last by the sunlit sea.



Blessed Peoria and Manhattan, Ottowa and Green Bay, Pittsburgh,


Dresden.



And blessed their children.



And blessed the lovers for they shall have one perfect day.



Blessed be the dolphin out beyond the furthest buoy,


slaughtering the bright leapers,


for they shall have full bellies.



Blessed, too, the cormorant and the osprey and the pelican


for they are the cherubim and seraphim and archangel.



And blessed be the gull, open throated, screeching, scolding


me to my face,



for he shall have his own place returned to him.


And the glossy lip of the long wave shall have the last kiss.

— Robert Dana

via among the pines

via MoonFace

I don't know

I don't know which side I'm on

I don't know my right from left

Or my right from wrong

Say I'm a fool

You say I'm not for you

But if I'm a fool for you

Oh, that's something

Two hearts beat as one

Two hearts beat as one

Two hearts...

two hearts beat as one, by u2

for the soon-to-be halverdamns. here's to c & l at 4.45 this afternoon.

Starting the game at their own 37 yard line, Jake McKinney ran through the Rogers line like grape juice through a two-year old completing runs of 13, 18, and 17 yards, capping the 5 play, 2 minute drive with an 8 yard touchdown.

from the richland bombers' website. this metaphor makes me oh, so very happy. as does the team mascot.

The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult.

prov. 12.16

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

prov. 12.18

A prudent man conceals knowledge, but the heart of fools proclaims folly.

prov. 12.23

solomon has a lot to say to people like me.

some good thoughts on canadia's hosting of the olympics.

via espn.com

Here come old flattop, he come grooving up slowly

He got joo-joo eyeball, he one holy roller

He got hair down to his knee

Got to be a joker he just do what he please

He wear no shoeshine, he got toe-jam football

He got monkey finger, he shoot coca-cola

He say "I know you, you know me"

One thing I can tell you is you got to be free

Come together right now over me

He bag production, he got walrus gumboot

He got Ono sideboard, he one spinal cracker

He got feet down below his knee

Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease

Come together right now over me

[Right!

Come, oh, come, come, come.]

He roller-coaster, he got early warning

He got muddy water, he one mojo filter

He say "One and one and one is three"

Got to be good-looking cos he's so hard to see

Come together right now over me

Oh

Come together

Yeah come together

Yeah come together

Yeah come together

Yeah come together

Yeah come together

Yeah come together

Yeah oh

Come together

Yeah come together

come together

lennon/mccartney

until you've heard joe cocker sing this at twelve fifteen on a friday morning when you've not slept enough in a week and not worked enough quite yet; until you've watched two men dance like boys in a kitchen full of chocolate and cream and blessing; until you've lived a week with tk, tank, bobstar, and raab, you haven't lived at'all.

Jurgensen, Ditka, Kilmer, Hart and Youngblood played during an era when “unfortunate plays” were the norm.

And don’t get started on Terrell Owens. Jurgensen had the perfect remedy for players like Owens, who are perceived to have “me-first” attitudes.

“Receivers I didn’t like I used to throw it in there easy so that they would get nailed,” Jurgensen said. “You know, hang ’em out to dry.”

“Especially if they dropped the pass before and they start yelling at you,” Kilmer said.

“That’s right,“ said Hart. “You run ’em across the middle and throw it in there just so.”

“Hang ’em out to dry,” Jurgensen said again, seeming to enjoy his cigar more than ever. “They’d get the message — in two minutes. They’d come back to the huddle and say, ‘I understand.’ Exactly!”

via a naples, fl newspaper

yeah, i was raised on football. and this pleases me to just short of no end.

He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been its dominant fact, and, unless this training has no effect upon a people, the American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise. But never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves. For a moment, at the frontier, the bonds of custom are broken and unrestraint is triumphant. There is not tabula rasa. The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet, in spite of environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier. What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely. And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.

frederick jackson turner, the significance of the frontier in american history, ch. 1

this makes me wonder about space. final frontier indeed. nasa never seemed like a good idea to me until now.

The purchase of Louisiana was perhaps the constitutional turning point in the history of the Republic, inasmuch as it afforded both a new area for national legislation and the occasion of the downfall of the policy of strict construction. But the purchase of Louisiana was called out by frontier needs and demands. As frontier States accrued to the Union the national power grew. In a speech on the dedication of the Calhoun monument Mr. Lamar explained: "In 1789 the States were the creators of the Federal Government; in 1861 the Federal Government was the creator of a large majority of the States."

frederick jackson turner, the significance of the frontier in american history, ch. 1

No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it.

ecclesiastes 8:8

10 Reasons Why I Should Spend Time with the Elderly:

1. I don’t have better things to do.

2. I have lots of energy and time.

3. It’s one way for me to get wisdom.

4. It teaches me to fear the Lord.

5. It’s obedience to the fifth commandment.

6. It teaches me how to be part of the Church.

7. It fulfills the promises of God and enacts the Kingdom of God.

8. It reminds me of where I’m going (Eccl. 12:1ff).

9. It teaches me to hate sin.

10. It teaches me to long for the resurrection and consummation of all things.

lifted from Toby Sumpter’s blog

via pushlings

The more I know, the more nearly is my faith that of the Breton peasant. Could I but know all I would have the faith of a Breton peasant woman."

louis pasteur, in a letter to one of his children

we had an assignment to write the first and last paragraphs of a novel for two declamations. i don't have a name or even a real plot for this, but i knew the feel i wanted. something as dark as poe, as angsty as fitzgerald, as heart-wrenching as graham greene, as metaphor-rich as bradbury, as concise as o'connor. obviously i failed. the question is by how much. the feel of the second part is different because the only end i saw for the story at the beginning was a kiss or a bullet. when the time came, i wanted neither. anyhow. there it is.

first paragraph

The sky was the color of her coffee in the Seattle midnight. Streetlight trapped by clouds, pressed tight against the city’s dirty heaving bosom. I had my collar flipped up to keep the rain out; not that it mattered anyhow. I’d been walking for so many hours that my shirt was soaked beneath my pea coat. My socks sopped as I stepped through the puddles and raindrop curtains surrounding the awnings of lawyers and bail bondsmen. The cigarette I started five or six blocks ago was already burning my lips. I stopped to light another on the doorstep of an apartment complex, alluringly dubbed Bayview Manors in extravagant swoops of neon light. I wondered if any of them could even see the city, what with the newspaper and burglar bars. I stepped away from the flyer in the window that promised me the lifestyle I’d always wanted. I looked up into the downpour. The rain was thick, falling like sorrows on the heads of the just.

last paragraph

Does it ever stop raining in this city? One last cigarette and the coppery taste of blood in my mouth. Smoke is good thing; it gives you something to think about besides pain and at that point the cut on my head was still bleeding down my cheek. I tensed up when a couple sirens squealed and fishtailed around the corner, but they flew by. Should have known nobody would call the cops. Not in this neighborhood. A taxi pulled up next to me. The driver’s window slid down and her face caught the moonlight and spun it back at me in a tired smile. I smiled back – still not used to the idea of a woman taxi driver, much less her. I climbed in the passenger seat, and we wove through the dripping steel of the city. Stores and then lights faded behind as we drove. Now even the rusty clouds have disappeared in the west as we drive faster and faster, trying to make the daylight come sooner, trying to get out of the night.

you have to go on and be crazy. craziness is like heaven.

jimi hendrix

here's to friday nights full of smoke and flame and friends and laughter.

here's to ch, lr, se, bh, mh, mm, rm, jf, jw, ta, tk, and rn.

here's to trucks skimming across snow and down hills.

here's to ash.

via Ash H

“All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.”

Jean-Luc Godard

i should note that i'm surprisingly comfortable with this.

via the impossible cool. another blog every person should read daily.