“Schools today, we say we’re preparing our kids for the 21st century,” said Jacqueline DeChiaro, the principal of Van Schaick Elementary School in Cohoes, N.Y., who is debating whether to cut cursive. “Is cursive really a 21st-century skill?”

via the nytimes

disgust, i think, is the word i'm looking for.

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

chesterton

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

st. john's Gospel, 1:1-18

the Light has shone in the darkness, and we have seen His glory where we are. we have seen Him coming afar off, and now through the mirror of faith dimly, yet soon face to face. for like He did this day, we too shall rise unto Life eternal. today is the day that puts all may days and earth days and arbor days to shame, for today is the day of Life. today is the day that death lost and earth, the earth, was given Life. Happy Easter.

It can be said that God in the first creation of things decided to produce effects regularly in the presence of, and not in the absence of, certain things and each thing of the same species. And it belongs to these things to be a cause by their nature, i.e., by that nature in which they were constituted at their creation. And the term 'regularly' is used because God did not tie His power down to the creatures.

gabriel biel, whether the sacraments of the new covenant are effective causes of grace p. 4

And so it is not the case that heat is a cause of heat because of some other power that exists in it; rather, it is a cause of heat solely because God has so determined Himself that in the presence of heat-- and not unless it is present--He regularly wills to produce heat. And if He had not so decided, then the very same heat, which would in that case exist without any change, would be heat and yet would not be a cause of heat. Hence, God does nothing through a secondary cause without its being the case that He does it through Himself just as principally and no less so than if He were doing it alone.

gabriel biel, whether the sacraments of the new covenant are effective causes of grace, p.3

This argument seems strong to me and sufficiently plausible for us to conclude that if God were to decide that from this day forward He is going to will to send rain at the utterance of some word pronounced by someone, then that word, once uttered, would be just as properly a cause of the rain brought about by God at its utterance as heat is a cause of heat. And this seems altogether true. For a creature has nothing except from God's will alone, which grants it to the creature freely and contingently.

gabriel biel, whether the sacraments of the new covenant are effective causes of grace, p.3-4

Indeed, Homer represents a perfection in structure and scope of the raw poetic art of the unknown author of Beowulf; Virgil, on the other hand, represents the self-conscious and literary decadence of that art. It is not until Dante that Western civilization achieves the kind of poetic perfection at which Virgil failed so magnificently. And between the pole of that failure and the pole of Dante's perfection, the primitive art of Beowulf reigns supreme.

john nist

beowulf and the classical epics, in college english journal, v.24,no.4, jan 1963, pg. 262.

among the things i called this man, "ignorant hateful business-schooled idiot" was undoubtedly the kindest. seriously. dante perfection? virgil failure!? does he read real books or just children's abridgments? time to grow up sir.

With fainting soul athirst for Grace,

I wandered in a desert place,

And at the crossing of the ways

I saw a sixfold Seraph blaze;

He touched mine eyes with fingers light

As sleep that cometh in the night:

And like a frightened eagle's eyes,

They opened wide with prophecies.

He touched mine ears, and they were drowned

With tumult and a roaring sound:

I heard convulsion in the sky,

And flight of angel hosts on high,

And beasts that move beneath the sea,

And the sap creeping in the tree.

And bending to my mouth he wrung

From out of it my sinful tongue,

And all its lies and idle rust,

And 'twixt my lips a-perishing

A subtle serpent's forkd sting

With right hand wet with blood he thrust.

And with his sword my breast he cleft,

My quaking heart thereout he reft,

And in the yawning of my breast

A coal of living fire he pressed.

Then in the desert I lay dead,

And God called unto me and said:

"Arise, and let My voice be heard,

Charged with My will go forth and span

The land and sea, and let My word

Lay waste with fire the heart of man."

the prophet

by alexander pushkin

props to xian

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given,"If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned." Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear." But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

hebrews 12:18-24

Last Thursday night, our dear friend and brother, Jim Kirtley, went to be with the Lord and joined the saints who rest from their labors and await the resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 3-4, Paul describes the glory of the new covenant in the gospel of Jesus. Whereas the glory of the Old Covenant was veiled and fading, Paul says that the glory of the New Covenant does not fade and it is unveiled as we all behold the face of Jesus in the preaching of the gospel. But Paul says that we have this treasure in earthen vessels, in jars of clay. This means that we are hard pressed, persecuted, struck down, always carrying around in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus. But this also means that pain and dying and death are not reasons for despair but rather reasons for great hope. Paul says that he does not lose heart in beatings or imprisonment or sleeplessness or fastings, but in all of these things he expects the glory of God to shine forth. This is because the glory of the new covenant is that it is even brighter and it does not fade and it is unveiled. But since we have this treasure, this glory in earthen vessels in our bodies, that means that God’s glory shines forth not in spite of our suffering but actually because of our suffering. When our bodies are struck, when we suffer, when we die, those earthen vessels are struck and cracked and broken until the light of the glory of Christ bursts forth. And I cannot help but think of Gideon and his small band of 300 men attacking the vast armies of the Midianites by night. Gideon’s men carried torches in their earthen vessels and then shattered them as the trumpets were blown, lighting up the hills with the blaze, and when the Midianites saw the torches they fled in terror. Paul says that we should think of our lives, our bodies as earthen vessels with the torch of the Spirit inside, and when we are struck, when we are hard pressed, and when faithful saints suffer and die, we should see the glory of Easter bursting through. When Jim died this week, another torch burst out in the darkness, and we should expect to see Midianites on the run.

via toby sumpter