Ramblings

You'd think by the time I can no longer focus visually on what I'm typing and the screen keeps jumping away from my eyes I'd take a hint and stop blogging for the night. Then again, I'm not that bright. And besides, I'm home completely alone so I've really nothing better to do, though I am in the middle of baking raspberry muffins...I'll have to take some to work tomorrow to appease the doctors (I don't think they like me much but I have yet to discover why). At least blogging distracts me from the *creepy noises* that kept me awake until 2 am last night. Anywho, this post, and my brain, have lost focus so enough and good night!

Quotes, quotes, quotes...

I think I'll make up for my utter lack of originality with some more quotations:

"Because we are creatures we must necessarily see and express the world poetically. All our knowledge is in some fashion metaphorical. Only God knows things immediately. For us, wound tight in our finitude, knowledge of the world must be mediated, that is, apportioned to us in the same way a toddler gets his mashed peas." ~Wilson & Jones, 181

"...the world is an enchanted place, and so when a scientist describes it for us as a great concourse of atoms banging blindly down the corridors of time, we should not commend his stark scientific realism. We should rather condemn the clunky poetry[...] Our choice is not between science and poetry, but rather between good poetry and bad poetry." ~Ibid. 182

And, along the same lines, here is Tolkien's view of the subject:
"Something really 'higher' is glimpsed in mythology [poetry]: Divinity, the right to power (as distinct from its posssession), the due of worship, in fact 'religion.' Andrew Lang said, and is by some still commended for saying that mythology and religion (in the strict sense of the word) are two distinct things that have become inextricably entangled..." ~On Fairy-stories, 25

Finally, on to some of the more mundane details of my life... I've started working at a vet clinic and find myself slightly overwhelmed by the sheer variety of tasks given to me. I do very basic things like laundry (which runs constantly) but also "restrain" animals during procedures and clean kennels, etc. The best (and most complicated) part is probably making and sterilizing surgery packets. And then there's the job of loading euthenized animals into garbage bags and taking them to a giant freezer- not the most glamorous job in the world, but also not as "icky" as I would have imagined. All-in-all, things have gone very well this week, and the people training me are so exceptionally patient :)

In other news, I have had time to catch up on a ton of reading...I LOVE summer! A Sayers mystery, James Joyce's Ulysses (which I have not yet started- it's rather daunting...), The Oxford History of the Crusades (I'm forcing myself to read it after seeing Hollywood's perversion of history in Kingdom of Heaven, Bulfinch's Mythology, and as many Chaim Potok books as I could find!

Ponderation

How strange it is that hardly an hundred years ago students routinely read Vergil in its original language and today we scoff at Latin, calling it "dead." Yet this is no sign that Latin has lost any of its potency, but rather that our culture has lost what little it once had.

Fascinated with Sayers

Only on the eighteenth page of Dorothy Sayers' Whimsical Christian and I've already filled my notebook with three pages worth of quotes & notes. Honestly, it's a bit overwhelming, so I'm sure I'll have to re-read it over the summer. Anyway, here is an excellent example of Sayers' versatility as a writer:

Hynm Suitable for the Vigil of the Enlightenment

"The day that Nature gave is ending
The hand of Man turns on the light;
We praise thee, Progress, for defending
Our nerves against the dreadful night.

As o'er each continent and island
The switches spread synthetic day,
The noise of mirth is never silent,
Nor dies the stain of toil away.

We thank thee that thy speed incessant
Provides upon this whirling ball
No time to brood on things unpleasant--
No time, in fact, to think at all.

Secure amid the soothing riot
Of crank and sound track, plane and car,
We shall not be condemned to quiet,
Nor left alone with what we are.

By lavish and progressive measures
Our neighbor's wants are all relieved;
We are not called to share his pleasures
And in his grief we are not grieved.

Thy wingèd wheels o'erspan the oceans,
Machining out the Standard Man.
Our food, our learning, our emotions
Are processed for us in the can.

All bars of color, caste, and nation
Must yield to movies and the mike;
We need not seek communication,
For thou dost make us all alive.

So be it! Let not sleep nor slackness
Impede they Progress, Light sublime;
Nor ever let us glimpse the blackness
That yawns behind the gates of Time."

Random Post of the Day

Here are some of my random thoughts, in no particular order at all…

My last few posts have been conspicuously lacking in comments.

I’ve found Erasmus quite boring, so I’ve given Praise of Folly up for Dorothy Sayers, who is much more engaging. I’m sure Erasmus is very dutiful to Ad Herennium, but his oration is unbearably structured—there’s no poetry to it.

I have 8 windows open on the computer right now.

It’s very weird to blog about Erasmus and Sayers while listening to the song Mockingbird.

The word “blog” isn’t even in Word’s spell check/dictionary.

I ought to be studying my Philosophy right now, or even Spanish considering my final’s today.

This could likely be my last post for a long while; summer is better spent with books than with the computer.

First Arabesque

Japanese Gardens

Ballet

Ne quid Nimis

My goodness! It's the end of the quarter already-- I'm not sure I'll be able to endure a full 3 months without books... Then again, what's the summer for if not excessive "recreational" reading?

I've decided not to study for finals this quarter :) I'm just a little burnt out with studying at the moment.

"According to this conception dergrees of value are objectively present in the Universe. Everything except God has some natural superior; everything except unformed matter has some natural inferior. The goodness, happiness, and dignity of every being consists in obeying its natural superior and ruling its natural inferiors." ~C.S. Lewis

"The medievalist thinks of our entire existence as a dance, in which some bow and some curtsey, some play the music and some dance, some laugh in gladness and some try to flatter the ladies. The irony, the last being first and all that, is that when a man finds a lowly station in cheerful obedience, he acquires in this great dignity. He knows what he is supposed to do in the dance, and he is happy to do it. In the medieval world, a simple stable hand could be content with his station. Today a union member glares at mangement and calls it his moral duty." ~Wilson and Jones 167

Neglecting Nietzsche

More quotes...I finished Angels in the Architecture over the long weekend. Other than that and an insane sunburn (only on my back), the weekend was fairly uneventful. Hooray for finals! Wait- that means I've been blogging for a whole quarter now...cool!

"For some time now we have hyped the importance of having 'contemporary' and 'relevant' Christianity and have done so to the point where we have almost emptied the faith of its historic and orthodox content" (Jones & Wilson 97).

"Modernity has abandoned the household gods, not because we have rejected the idolatry as all Christians must, but because we have rejected the very idea of household [...] If our rejection of the old idols was Christian repentance, God would bless it, but what is actually happening is that we are sinking below the level of the ancient pagans" (Jones & Wilson 117).

"A rebellious city is not a place of peace, of Sabbath. It is in constant movement, unending work. It rejects the rhythms and seasons of God and imposes its own exhausting drone and sleepless flow of electricity and wheels. It is no place for silence. Silence is terrifying; it reveals our bitter sin. The rebellious demand constant background noise as a shield from God. It provides diversion from their souls..." (Jones & Wilson 135).

And, especially regarding my previous comments about Plato's Republic:
"The truth is that even a non-tyrannical king or president is a sign of our lack of self-control. The existence of civil authorities should always be a reminder that we are so immature as a people that we cannot live our lives peacefully on our own in submission to the divine commands. Every kingly, presidential, or prime-ministerial seal should bear the inscription 'They have not rejected thee; but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them' (I Sam. 8:7). There have been godly kings, kings with whom God has been pleased [...] yet the goal should be 'no king but Christ'" (Jones & Wilson 152).