Alexander attended a banquet and, if the traditional accounts are to be believed, literally drank himself to death. The climax came in an exchange of toasts in which he is said to have downed twelve pints of undiluted wine in one steady draft. He doubled up with a violent spasm and collapsed into a coma, from which his doctors were unable to revive him.

peoples and empires by anthony pagden, p.10

On parting the next morning [the travelers] let the knight know that they took him for Hutton. 'No, he is Luther,' interposed the host. The knight laughed. 'You take me for Hutton. He takes me for Luther. Maybe I am the Devil.'

here i stand by roland bainton, ch.12 p.165

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

Whether we 'spiritualize' our life or 'secularize' our religion, whether we invite men to a spiritual banquet or simply join them at the secular one, the real life of the world, for which we are told God gave his only-begotten Son, remains hopelessly beyond our religious grasp.

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.1, p.13

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1973).

He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become central figures of their stories. He is known also for his unrepentant lifelong use of alcohol, LSD, mescaline, and cocaine (among other substances); his love offirearms; his long-standing hatred of Richard Nixon; and his iconoclastic contempt for authoritarianism. While suffering a bout of health problems, he committed suicide in 2005, at the age of 67.

On August 20, 2005, in a private ceremony, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon atop a 153-foot (47 m) tower of his own design (in the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button) to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man."Red, white, blue, and green fireworks were launched along with his ashes. As the city of Aspen would not allow the cannon to remain for more than a month, the cannon has been dismantled and put into storage until a suitable permanent location can be found. According to his widow Anita, Thompson's funeral was financed by actor Johnny Depp, a close friend of Thompson. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."

Other famous attendees at the funeral included U.S. Senator John Kerry and former U.S. Senator George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, Bill Murray, Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; singers Lyle Lovett, John Oates and numerous other friends. An estimated 280 people attended the funeral.

wow. just wow. all i can say about that. if you had read that in a book, you'd say there's no way, there's nobody quite that strange in the world. and you'd be wrong.

via wiki

For every one of us, living in this world

means waiting for our end. Let whoever can

win glory before death.

beowulf, 1386-1388

If Christian teaching condemned all warfare, then the soldiers in the gospel who were seeking guidance about their security would have been told to throw away their weapons and withdraw entirely from the army. But what was said to them was: 'Do not intimidate anyone; do not bring false charges against anyone; be satisfied with your wages' [Lk 3:14]. He instructed them to be satisfied with their due wages, but he didn't prohibit military service in general.

augustine, letter to marcellinus, p.39

But now the goods I sought were no longer in the external realm, nor did I seek for them with bodily eyes in the light of this sun. In desiring to find their delight in externals, they easily become empty and expend their energies on 'the things which are seen and temporal' (2 Cor. 4:18). With starving minds they can only lick the images of these things (Plotinus 1.6.8.8).

augustine, confessions, ix.10

sadly enough, this picture reminds me as much of the eastern Orthodox church as of the pagans. Blessed are they who have not seen, yet believe!

[The New Testament] is a Jewish book, telling Jewish-style stories, yet telling them for the world. It is a book of the world, retelling the story of the world as the story of Israel, and the story of Israel as the story of Jesus, in order to subvert the world's stories, and to lay before the world the claim of Jesus to be its sovereign. It is a Christian book, pouring new wine into the old bottles of Judaism, and new Jewish wine into the old bottles of the world, intending that this double exercise should have its inevitable and explosive double effect.

bishop n.t. wright, the new testament and the people of God, p.469

But why did Jews persecute Christians? Were they not both in the same boat -- branded as atheists, regarded as the scum of the earth, scorned when doing badly and resented when doing well? The answer here clearly lies in the ferocity of polemic between different pressure-groups, parties and/or sects within the same parent body. Sibling rivalry is fiercest when the siblings have an inheritance to share, or when one feels that another is ruining the chances of any of them inheriting it at all.

bishop n.t. wright, new testament and the people of God, p.450

interesting. also why i think it likely that islam arose out of arian/jacobite heresy and is not simply a different religion than Christianity.

"If in one sense the camera never lies, we can see that in another sense it never does anything else. It excludes far more than it includes."

bishop n.t. wright, new testament and the people of God, p. 83

this is, i think, both the power and the peril of film. it's perilous because, as wright says, film is a lie in a very important sense, an intentional blinding to the rest world in order to create a story. it truly is a moving picture -- a capsule of life no bigger or more encompassing than a normal picture frame can be, yet it allows us to tell a story. and this is the power, because in that snapshot, in the distillation and intentional limiting of our vision, we can inspect much more closely character, plot, motif, theme, metaphor, in short, we can more fully realize who we are in our own grand story by comparing that story to the director's limited one.

this.

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

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

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

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

Dr. W.: Each red blood cell can hold a billion O2 molecules – 250 million oxygen on each of the four hemoglobin "seats."

trotter – it’s like a Mexican bus!

tank – it’s a white truck.

found this today while going through science notes. i'm [in general] not [particularly] racist, but this is at least a little funny.