Out of Egypt...Halfway to the Promised Land

2003-11-17T23:19:00.000-05:00

It's Over

Well, all of you who link to me can officially update your links. donovan.covblogs.com is the place to be.

So the only question remaining is, Should I delete this site or leave it up for the archives (such as they are)?

2003-11-16T02:04:00.000-05:00

Farewall, Blogspot

My new site is up, though not quite ready for prime time.

Some typos are just too good to change.

2003-11-16T01:26:00.000-05:00

This video is hilarious, especially when synced with Radiohead's "2+2=5." Try it with other songs and tell me what you think. Link from Josiah.

2003-11-12T21:01:00.000-05:00

Crazy Busy Lately

ITunes for Windows is the only thing saving my sanity. Thus, to continue the music theme of my recent posts, I've always wondered why "Sloop John B" was on Pet Sounds. Sure, it's a good song, but it just doesn't fit. I mean, if you're going to make what is basically a concept album about the ups and downs of romantic love, why would you stick in the middle a cover song about someone's bad trip to the Bahamas? To me, that's the first sign that Brian Wilson was losing it.

2003-11-11T00:20:00.000-05:00

Bright Eyes Did a Christmas Album

Weird.

2003-11-07T14:29:00.000-05:00

Belle & Sebastian's Best Album is "Tigermilk"

Well, yeah.

2003-11-06T19:27:00.000-05:00

Course Evaluations Can Be Fun

Just got a passel of course evaluations on the old email. I finally got to say that the "Christian View of Technology" class is an "utterly absurd piece of technophobic propaganda."

2003-10-30T01:15:00.000-05:00

I Surrender

Josiah, if you're reading this, I want to jump ship over to covblogs (despite the problems you've been having lately). My comments system has really been puttin' a hurtin' on me lately and I need an outlet. Suddenly, I find myself starting to care again (about blogging).

2003-10-21T00:30:00.000-04:00

Why Am I A Heretic?

Can one of you Lutheran or Orthodox folk (Josh S. or Christopher, this means you) explain to me why you consider Calvinism to have a deficient, perhaps even heretic, view of the Incarnation in particular and Christology in general? As a Reformed layperson, I just don't know that much about the subject. I mean, God became a man, one Person in two natures, that's about it, right?

2003-10-19T01:16:00.000-04:00

Pulp Fiction

Just saw the film, am still trying to process my experience. Traditionally I like my movies to have some redeeming value. As yet, I haven't found the redeeming value of Pulp Fiction. I laughed, I was engaged, but I question whether I should've been. With a movie like Magnolia, it's a lot less ambiguous.

2003-10-19T01:14:00.000-04:00

As far as I can tell, most people's college relationships look a lot like their high school ones. I'm trying not to return to cynicism, however.

2003-10-06T20:57:00.000-04:00

I Hate IM with a Passion

Yeah, I just had to get that off my chest. Anyway, I saw my roommate and a female friend of his sitting next to each other the other day in the 3rd lobby of Founders, just communicating on IM. And I thought...now that is what they meant when they said technology distances us from each other.

In other news, I agree with the Chattablogs folk that the whole relational mindset of Covenant is way overblown and creepy. People here take everything way too seriously, I think.

And I'm not just talking about "relationships" either. Even normal friendships have been polluted by this strange overscrutinization. Back home, I'm just friends with people. I don't worry about whether I'm maintaining the relationship enough or what-not. No offense to any ladies out there, but I always thought that was a feminine thing.

I think perhaps the problem may be too much John Eldridge and Josh Harris and too little Jonathan Edwards. (Happy 300th birthday, Rev. Edwards, by the way!)

2003-09-24T14:58:00.000-04:00

Give me one good reason...

...to blog anymore. Otherwise, goodbye. It's been fun (at times). You'll still see me on comments (occasionally). But I have better things to do.

2003-08-28T20:18:00.000-04:00

2nd day back at Covenant. It was a good drive down. I particularly liked reaquainting myself with the "Sunday Worship is the Mark of the Beast" signs on I-81.

2003-08-26T07:49:00.000-04:00

Sometimes dreams are a type of heaven - the reunion of souls in their ideal, faces made fresh after an age. I only hope that I may see in the heaven all those who factor in my dreams. This is the shadowland, that the feast.

2003-08-22T17:16:00.000-04:00

I hate comment services. You get what you pay for, I guess...

2003-08-21T16:16:00.000-04:00

Scott had a link to a Matrix essay a while back. Except the link actually went to the LCMS view on admission to the Lord's Supper. Well, he didn't fool me. I googled the link text and turned up the real essay. Enjoy.

I like how the author references Godel. I remember reading Hofstadter's book. I only wish I remembered understanding it.

2003-08-21T15:35:00.000-04:00

Going back to college in a few days. Maybe I'll start blogging again. Or maybe not.

2003-07-31T00:57:00.000-04:00

Most people, I fear, think that quantity rather than quality of friends is what matters. But to find one other person who truly understands - that is a miracle in itself.

2003-07-31T00:54:00.000-04:00

Well, I was looking through my archives tonight and I noticed two things: 1) They're really screwed up. Around 75% are just not there. 2)I'm really screwed up. Unfortunately, I started this blog right before going into a really weird time in my life. I wish I could just rescind all of what I posted in March, or at least most of it. I fear people who only know me from my blog don't really know me at all. But isn't that the case with online communication in general? I could never understand how people could fall in love on the Net.

2003-07-31T00:38:00.000-04:00

Words for the Pure Sound of It

I am seduced by the romance of flags -
A wind-enchanted carnival.
The stormclouds strip us down to rags
And I am left alone.

2003-07-21T02:44:00.000-04:00

Why am I still awake? This is ridiculous.

2003-07-21T00:09:00.000-04:00

As neither of my readers may possibly know, I'm a runner. It's pretty much the only athletic thing that I'm good at. Anyway, I ran in a race yesterday [actually Saturday - I didn't check the date stamp] called the FreshBurst in beautiful Lititz. I hurt my calf, though, so I didn't do nearly as well as I'd hoped. Ah well...

2003-07-20T02:24:00.000-04:00

Clarification: in the poem below, I mean "encountering" in the literal sense, not in any euphemistic sense. I still believe in Christian sexual morality.

2003-07-20T02:16:00.000-04:00

I've been encountering a girl -
A girl of ignorance and bliss
Whom we like barnacles drag down

Our cynicism may yet drown
Her life, which pulses though not deep

Thus many others like to her -
Fools delight while angels sleep

2003-07-20T02:11:00.000-04:00

Preserve my high school yearbook self -
No, not the picture, but the words
The product of compliments received
A better person, not so hollow

I've been diluted by the days
What once were friends have passed away
Tides washed me from their shores

So far I've never learned to love
Though Christ is knocking at the door
And all these pangs which pass for love
Are fleshly self - that I abhor

2003-07-20T01:44:00.000-04:00

Beginnings to the Unspeakable

It seems that one's intelligence is often inversely proportional to one's personal happiness. Perhaps those of you who like me are blessed with the "artistic temperment" know what I mean.

A passage in Borges gives a clue why this may be the case. He suggests that "the outer world - forms, temperatures, the moon - is a language we humans have forgotten or which we can scarcely distinguish." Those who do not hear this speech remain in themselves. They are comfortable with their place in the narrative and so are happy.

But those who see the vague signs of earth and sky, the weaving of smiles and partings that is life, cannot have such peace. We desire to know, and knowledge is denied us. And so we struggle with our inability to read, making meaning from the bright scraps that fall.

"The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked - who can know it?" I have almost given up hope that our art can heal. Rather, it seems all we can do is crystallize the madness, make a record for the sufferers to come. For there is nothing worse than to be alone.

As a Christian, I confess that redemption comes from outside of time. Since all things under the sun suffer decay how else could it come?

God destroys to create. Before He can redeem our true selves He must bring us through the fire. In that light all our earthly hopes dissolve. Without eternity, time is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

The artists are faithful as far as they go. Natural revelation is despair.

I can see why this is so. For if faith was sight, then it would not be faith. And yet in myself I still feel the carnal desire to be my own Logos, my own integration point for the cosmos. Sometimes there is a sweetness in despair.

A pagan melancholy somehow feels more honest than a Christian joy. Why else am I listening to Radiohead right now, after all? My creed is a treasure this I know but it is hard to live in the real world. All our habits go against it.

I called this post "Beginnings to the Unspeakable." I chose that title because that is how I feel - as if my whole life, my role in the narrative, was to be forever on the borderland of insight and never to cross over. I am a contemplative not of the pearl, but of the sieve and sand.

Perhaps all these high-sounding words are simply a glaze for something lower, some vague stirrings of disappointment, something purely biological. What of it? This disappointment is yet odd, stemming as it does not from any particular incidents or circumstances, but simply from life itself. To me, at least,this suggests that we are not yet at home. We know only in part and we see as through a veil darkly. Hardly have we begun to be ourselves. I wait for that white stone which was promised to the Apostle John, that stone on which is written a new name which no one else knows.

I do not exist for myself, for pleasure, for the aesthetic ache which is so sweet tonight. I do not exist except in relation to my Lord. This word is food for the journey. The other, the unspeakable which I shall never reach, is but sophistry and illusion.

2003-07-17T19:10:00.000-04:00

Wow comments on my blog again. The Skinnerian reinforcement cycle begins.

2003-07-09T15:59:00.000-04:00

"Persecution, new killer diseases, earthquakes and wars everywhere all prove that this is the last generation. And that's why I'm so excited."

It's things like this that make me postmillenial.

2003-07-06T19:25:00.000-04:00

I was talking with my mom today about the unusual pictures I drew while in elem. school art class. It reminded me of the much more unusual pictures which a certain French schizophrenic drew of cats. Stage 3 in particular makes me think of some bizarre Hindu god.

2003-07-04T16:59:00.000-04:00

Above Josh's blog there was an advertisement for a booklet on the Five Points of Calvinism. Ironic, isn't it?

2003-07-02T13:40:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm on the new Blogger now. Pretty, isn't it? I have no idea how it differs from the old Blogger, tho.

Interesting that my last three posts were all on Fridays. Mystical significance, perhaps?

2003-06-20T19:10:00.000-04:00

"Like a glowing David Hasselhoff on the Berlin Wall." - Matt Serfass

2003-06-13T19:44:00.000-04:00

This'll waste some good time for ya.

2003-06-06T19:03:00.000-04:00

"God has told me that I am the head prophet of the world." -Douglas Stambler And you call Douglas Wilson a heretic? :)

2003-06-05T23:15:00.000-04:00

I always dreamed of having a job that would satisfy my soul. Color me idealistic and naive. Will we always remain in the limbo of economic pragmatism.

2003-06-02T23:35:00.000-04:00

Mankind is building his vision of transcendence.

2003-05-27T19:25:00.000-04:00

Well, my journalistic quest has been fruitless as yet. Two papers of brusque receptionists and harried editors. I'm thinking of selling myself to a passing slaver - enmeshing myself in mud and toil. Seriously, I think I will shift my plans and go into construction for a while. Why not?

2003-05-26T22:06:00.000-04:00

Imagine my town sunk to beach. Cross half-moon dark and tides, I'm running.

Imagine my life two months from now as it is then. A candle frozen in the dark. Seasons of prayer shall cycle hollow.

For they shall wonder, what has he done? I answer Nothing - but to breathe and run.

2003-05-20T22:49:00.000-04:00

I'm still waiting to hear back from the newspaper people. Oh Lord, these days are sapped of half their life.

I'm neither manic nor depressed. I'm just waiting.

2003-05-13T19:47:00.000-04:00

I'm half the blogger I used to be, it seems. The magic is gone. I guess it's that I'm no longer in an academic setting.

Without the continuity of discussion and debate, the soil of my mind lies fallow.

I really need to get a job. Amazing how much one's identity can become bound up with that steady flow of cash. Until then, it feels like I'm just sitting on my hands. But as Milton said, "they also serve who only stand and wait."

2003-05-09T21:22:00.000-04:00

I Am -

enlightened by the gaze of days
profoundest sinking into mist
perpetual wandering in the world
embittered no, a little lost

still tongue can tell one's walk from night
and heartily embrace the Day
a life once lived by faith, not sight
shall echo back in endless praise

2003-05-06T17:30:00.000-04:00

Maybe I'll have a real post later tonight. It takes a good run to shake some thoughts out of me.

2003-05-02T21:54:00.000-04:00

Returning to Myself...

Ah, time to think about returning to Covenant next year. And a summer job. And all that good stuff. I really am stabilized now, it seems, thank the Lord.

Here's a poem from yesterday:

The stars abridged the human eye,
A hammock slung across the sky
Sent light to cross the chapels higher
With moongold glow now to aspire
Hung toil up God's heaven tower

2003-04-04T16:36:00.000-05:00

All right, I've rededicated my blog to (allegorical?) children's verse.

On coming in to my Friend's House
I saw a Chair and there a Mouse
And so I stood and cried, so sighed
But God said "Whisk" and that Mouse died

And now in Love for Him I wait
For He is standing at my Gate
And He shall carry all my Freight
From Big to little, small to Great

I sit a child 'fore Thy Face
Living to die, yet by Thy Grace
I shall see Heaven from this Race
And shall not weep out my Disgrace

I like Emily Dickenson. I really like almost all poetry except the Romantics. World-soul: paugh!

2003-04-04T13:54:00.000-05:00

I can still read Scripture, though, thank God. I just have to read the Law and other "slow" parts.

2003-04-04T13:44:00.000-05:00

Things I was reading together when I had my nervous breakdown:

(All excellent, BTW.)

Holy Scripture
St. Athanasius - De Incarnatione
St. Bernard - Selected Writings
Bishop Ware - The Orthodox Way
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Life Together
Chesterton - The Everlasting Man
Credenda/Agenda back issues
tons and tons of blogs and other random stuff

What I saw last night that kept me up: Tale Spin, Dora the Explorer, the last chapter of Meredith Kline's Images of the Spirit (too much dunamis for my sake), a little of St. Athanasius' reflections on the Psalms.

Media is such a temptation for me. That's what my Lenten fast has to be from. For me, it's like being asked not to drink water for a while.

2003-04-04T13:38:00.000-05:00

The Trinity is like a prism: white light diffracting into the three primary colors. The blends are us - those baptized into His (plural) Name. Am I right about this?

2003-04-04T13:32:00.000-05:00

Just one more thing...

Well, I did manage to get some sleep last night - from 6 to 11. I'm feeling a little cloudy in my head, like the day outside and my eyes are gray but my mind is cooking.

See, here's the deal: I have manic depression. That means my moods swing from high to low. This means my Psyche is buffeted by winds she can't bear. She needs the arms of Christ her Bridegroom to hold her, she needs the Spirit's wind to blow her to the Rock where she can find anchor.

Right now, I feel like Ulysses. I am sailing around the world of thought, seeking to garner knowledge of realms unknown. May I not fall into the realm of the False Counselors!

They have strapped me to the mast, the Cross of Christ. While all the crew lives under the veil of late capitalism or whatever else is their gods, I hear the Siren song of the Devil clearly. Sometimes it stirs a chord in my flesh and sometimes I am safe. I'm frightened when alone.

Yet I am not alone; I am in the Body. I am in the cleft of the Rock from which flowed the water and the blood. And the waves can threaten but I say "The Lord rebuke you, Satan," and they are still.

For my Lord loves me and He died for me, and I come with His people to lay an offering at His altar: myself. The coal is burning on my lips, but I eat His Word and it is sweet, O it is sweet.

Disclaimer: I'm not a real mystic, I just am beginning to understand the premodern worldview, as Lewis and Chesterton did before me. I'm hardly farther on this Lenten pilgrimage than anyone else. I fear that I have not yet begun to give up myself. So many passions to crucify... And yet the lions and lambs of our warring nature shall come in to the Kingdom on the rainbow bridge, the lunatics jumping and hopping - fools for Christ's sake, like PrinceMyshkin in the Idiot (which I won't read until I'm well). And the little Child shall lead them.

Postscript: Credo I believe the Holy Scriptures were given by inspiration of God and are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. They are verbal records of experience of the One beyond speech and they are based on actual historical events. Anyone who claims to be a theologian and makes a category called Geschichte (sp?) and distinguishes it from real history is a wolf in sheep's clothing. I'm not neo-orthodox. Old orthodoxy was just fine, thank you.

Tillich's God was more like Plotinus' than anything else, from what I can tell. (I won't read his books until I'm well.) Actually his panentheism is worse than Plotinus. At least St. Augustine could be mistaken that John 1 was paralleled by Plotinus' talk about the One. All this modern talk about Ground of Being is just a way to avoid moral responsibility before the all-holy God, in my opinion.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in Sanctorium Communio (the part I read), the primal expression of pagan religion was the orgy. It's no accident it resurges in Tillich's theology department. Worship without ground in the Bridegroom/Bride relationship between Christ the God-Man and His Body the Church is going to be anarchy. And God is not the author of confusion.

"Morning Has Broken." All right, I'm going to cry now. I'll see you all later - hopefully not much later. But I hope to see many of you in glory. Indeed, I hope to see all of you there, but I don't think all my readers believe as of yet. Trust me, you'll come around. Sts. Bernard, Francis, and Patrick are a hard bunch to talk around. And in this past century of course there's always Chesterton and Lewis once again, prodding us in the back. And further back, MacDonald looms over them both...

2003-04-04T03:09:00.000-05:00

After some prayer and consideration, I've decided I'm going to avoid the 'Net for an indefinite period. (Until I really feel "well" whenever that is.) I'll check and reply to email; that's about it. Believe me, I'm going to survive this, sleep or no.

2003-04-04T03:06:00.000-05:00

What a Lent this has been for me. How long until Easter (Pascha), how long?

2003-04-04T03:01:00.000-05:00

Read all the blogs on my blogroll. There's some great stuff there, particularly on the Orthodox blogs. I can't link it since I don't know how the permalinks work, but James' thoughts on "Grave where is your sting? Death where is your victory?" are superb.

2003-04-04T02:56:00.000-05:00

From my youth many passions have fought against me... Here is what I need to hear. Why o why did the Protestant West have to abolish confession? If it was practiced as "soul care" rather than "sin/penance tally" it would be a beautiful thing.

2003-04-04T02:50:00.000-05:00

What is time? as St. Augustine said.

No one knows (and probably no one ever will). That's the wonder of it.

I say that time rests in the womb of God's eternity. All our world is a waiting room, all our world is a door that will open someday. That's the parousia.

Doing theology as if it were philosophy...ugh. It's like painting a seascape with a sieve. Our highest formulations shall falter and the mysteries of the Faith shall pass from our hands....into those of a child's.

2003-04-04T02:40:00.000-05:00

Still Insomnia

2:30 am. Good grief.

Struggling massively against temptation. I should've never tried reading the Church Fathers and mystics on my own, not to mention while studying Hellenistic philosophy. I need a spiritual director. My dad's wisdom and prayers just don't seem to make it far enough.

As St. Symeon the New Theologian said, the spiritual life proceeds "From the Alone to the alone..." What a comfort to wake in the morning into the arms of the Mystical Body, as represented by my parents. My only comfort right now is that He will not let me be tempted more than I can bear. Other than that, it's pretty frightening.

It's sanctifying the imagination by fire. All the filth I've ever seen comes bubbling up to the surface. Purge, purge. Our world is a living ball of hate. O nail it to the Cross.

Still pray for me.

2003-04-04T01:15:00.000-05:00

I gotta be careful see or I'll wake my whole family up. And that would be BAD. Nested HTML tags are fun, though.

2003-04-04T01:14:00.000-05:00

1:11 am. Listening to Messiaen's Oraison. Hopefully that'll generate some alpha waves or whatever they're called.

Oops. Martin Denny now. "Quiet Village" - the Moog version. How appropriate for night.

2003-04-04T01:07:00.000-05:00

Insomnia

My first and hopefully last night of it. Too much writing before bed. Not enough work today.

So I decided to check my email or else I'd just be lying there or else (what is worse) bouncing off the walls. Still needing your prayers. I may be outrunning the bear by God's grace but I ain't out of the woods yet.

2003-04-03T15:35:00.000-05:00

Neuralysis

Refashioned in the Imge...
Rewired in the Body.
Like one computer chip or human cell...

Lord mold me, hold me down a bridge
Upon which saints shall cross to Heaven
Lord make me, take me up a hand
To pass the torch as Thou hast chosen

Lord cross me, toss me down a plane
On which to view Thy holy battle
Lord sift me, lift me up as call
From deep to deep, O Thou my signal

The gate is closed: now I am breathing
Light Thou this shriven soul aflame

2003-04-03T15:32:00.000-05:00

In case anyone was worried, I haven't been on the Net hardly at all today. I've mainly been doing yard work (!), eating, and walking around Quarryville on this beautiful first day of spring. I am growing to love Lancaster County.

BTW, if any of you reading this are from Covenant, I'd really like to hear from you. Particularly the Writer's Box folk. Sorry everyone else :)

2003-04-03T14:17:00.000-05:00

Out of Muses' Madness, A Hymn to Christ

Inspired primarily by Gerard Manley Hopkins

O to catch Proteus in a jar
And strip him of his masks
To self, the bleeding Narcissus
Tumultuous waves incarnadine.

O breath out Christ in me, that Word
Thou speakest, and set captives free:
Hearts cannot long but His heart longs,
No fire further burns to be

2003-04-03T12:41:00.000-05:00

Now that I've left Covenant, they're blocking my email. Try this one instead: Epix Account.

Guys, I am coming back someday I hope. You didn't have to block my email... *sob*

2003-04-03T12:37:00.000-05:00

As stewards of Christ's talents, we define our jobs. Our jobs don't define us. Spirit, show us the many gifts you give the One Body!

2003-04-03T12:36:00.000-05:00

...Respondent:But he didn't mean to say that!

Co-respondent: True. He didn't. But the words meant to.

The preceding snippet of dialogue was inspired by Owen Barfield's book on etymology (once again) and Umberto Eco's comment about books talking among themselves. Why aren't there Christian semioticians? Walker Percy in his Lost in the Cosmos pointed the way, but nobody followed.

2003-04-03T11:23:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts on my recent illness

Manic depression is biochemical, not mental. That helped a good bit when my mom said that. I'm not crazy, just chemically imbalanced.

And now that my meds seem to be right, praise God, and my brain chemicals are pumping in time, I'm musing a bit about the whys and wherefores of my condition.

To some extent, at least, I think my attack was withdrawal symptoms from the sickness of our culture. My generation has made an art form out of depression and yet lives at 24 fps. Everyone thinks they have a 24/7 taxpayer-guaranteed ticket to happiness. This is America, right?

I was watching the new sci-fi epic (?) The Core yesterday and saw some disturbing parallels between myself and the young rebel heart protagonist, Mr. Rat. "I can multitask like you can breathe. I can't think as slow as you."

McLuhan's thesis is basically right. New media work us over completely. I certainly feel worked over - like a steamroller went over me. My nonlinear methods of notetaking are so antithetical to my dad's, it's amazing we communicate as well as we do.

And why are our methods so different? Simple. I'm of the Web Generation, he is not. The Internet is a vast nonsentient brain, rewiring other's brains. Take that, Kilgore Trout.

2003-04-03T11:17:00.000-05:00

The Narcissist and the Christian

One worships the creature rather than the Creator. The other, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, is changed day by day into that same glory.

One stagnates by the pond. The other sends ripples into history.

One is American. The other belongs to a better - that is, a heavenly - Country.

2003-04-03T11:15:00.000-05:00

All life is I-hand coordination. Sight plus reason conquers the world.

2003-04-01T16:34:00.000-05:00

Thy hand so heavy upon me
Is lifted -
Light

O bear each other's burdens.
With our wounds as swords.

2003-04-01T16:33:00.000-05:00

I am a tree
Whose roots strive to pull away
For sky

It is good to be grounded
In others' heart and flesh
Dug deep in the well of
God's soul, my soil
In the Word -

O Spirit, send Thy rain.

2003-04-01T16:32:00.000-05:00

While I was convalescing (arg!) last night (and listening to Cat Stevens' version of Morning has Broken), I was thinking it would be interesting to see a hymnal organized by the canonical hours and the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer.

2003-04-01T16:30:00.000-05:00

Yep. They're definately going away. Annoying as anything, tho...

2003-03-31T17:08:00.000-05:00

Slowly I think my symptoms are going away. The doctor said they were extrapyramidal, whatever that means.

2003-03-30T20:40:00.000-05:00

Home is the Sailor, Home from the Sea

Praise the Lord, I'm back. Time to forget my intellectual pride and learn to love and be a child.

2003-03-29T14:05:00.000-05:00

My flight back is tomorrow. It's a complicated deal getting back. I hope this works...

2003-03-28T16:20:00.000-05:00

Interesting having drug-induced problems with funny names like tardic diskinesia and akathisia.

2003-03-28T10:45:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm doing it....

I'm going back to Qvil. My meds just haven't been stabilizing my condition enough, at least not without side effects. Keep me in your prayers.

2003-03-24T18:21:00.000-05:00

I feel like a child with ADD has accidentally taken up residence in my body.

2003-03-24T10:03:00.000-05:00

I'm back at college now. There's a lot of work to be done, but it's good to be here and not maundering about my house.

2003-03-22T17:32:00.000-05:00

So anyway, I'm flying back to college. Tomorrow. Still waiting...

The Lord uses these kind of circumstances to teach people though. I'm certainly learning that I have a long way to go.

2003-03-21T16:11:00.000-05:00

"For just one minute I would like to be where I am." - Heidegger (as quoted by my philosophy prof, Dr. Partain)

Despite being a Nazi, he did say some true things. I think I'm getting to that point also. After 18 years, I'm finally learning how to stick to things.

Patience is difficult, o so difficult. But it's worth it, I hope.

2003-03-21T09:51:00.000-05:00

Despite the cheerful ambiguity of my last post, I really am feeling better. I see my psychiatrist later today and should be back at school for Monday. I may have to fly though. Flying is annoying.

2003-03-21T09:43:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel my head is full of weather...
The microcosm brews

2003-03-20T12:02:00.000-05:00

And this is what the rest of my generation is up to. Sounds like Linkin Park needs the meds more than I do.

2003-03-20T11:59:00.000-05:00

Don't take what I've said previously to mean that I'll never post again. I just won't post on any kind of regular schedule. I'll post when I feel like it. And that might be once a week, twice a week, once a month, whatever. I ain't make no promises.

2003-03-20T11:57:00.000-05:00

The last week or so has been so emotionally hairy it's unbelievable. Now I just want to sleep.

2003-03-18T15:54:00.000-05:00

Ora et Labora

The Christian life is prayer and work - preferably physical. I've been doing too much aimless speech and web dialogue.

So I'm going to fast from media for a while - as much as possible. I can't do a total fast from media in our hypermedia society, but I can do better than I have been doing.

My meds will help too. They've got me on Abilify - a atypical antipsychotic (though my problem is more that my philosophy is too lucid for my life) - and Ativan, to sleep. That should give me a nice vacation.

See, the problem is that for the past week or so, my vitals have been keyed basically to my emotional state and that of the people around me. I can't handle that. I've got to mellow out.

2003-03-18T11:28:00.000-05:00

A Warning from the Ward

Psyche -
embodied -
that mindful of flesh -
you are what you have practiced;
you are what you have seen.

As daylight fades from sky to ground,
my self-life's lost, now in Christ found.
Guard Thou my visions while I sleep -
I pass; my heart's key, Saviour, keep.

2003-03-17T19:48:00.000-05:00

Everyone should read my friend Matt's blog. It'll be a good laugh break...I promise.

2003-03-17T19:46:00.000-05:00

I really appreciate the comments you all made. The Internet isn't really a place of spiritual fellowship, but you've certainly brightened what's been a dark period in my life.

2003-03-17T19:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back...

...from the mental health ward. In about five years, maybe I'll write about it. But for now, I'm not going to be doing much writing. Praise God - I call to make my heart anew.

"This is the Day that the Lord has made;
I will rejoice and be glad in it."

2003-03-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

New Covenant Evangelism

Here's my understanding of the New Covenant in Christ. Christ reigns in Heaven at the right hand of the Father, surrounded by the angels, martyrs, and saints. Because of the mutual indwelling of Father and Son, they both possess the Spirit - though the Spirit properly speaking proceeds from the Father through His Son, the Word. Our job as evangelists is to cultivate the field of the inner man, representing Christ in our acts of love. The Spirit sends up waters from the earth. Then when they seem ready, we can plant the Seed of the Gospel and pray that it will bear much fruit. But if they don't know what kind of Seed it is, if they haven't seen Christ in us, then they won't realize why it is necessary to be baptized into His death before you can receive the Spirit and put Him on, the full armor of God. All of life is standing at a crossroads and God is always Wording by the Spirit, "Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy labor and I will give you rest." But to take from this crossroads to the paths of righteousness involves letting the Spirit plant a Cross within your soul, a Cross to kill and ward away the daemon which previously dwelt in the House. In this Way - the Way of self-denial, denial of the animal passions for the sake of the wisdom which the Spirit brings - we have eaten from the Tree of Life.

Thus, being now crucified with Christ, we can proceed to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which now bears many fruits. Its ground is Theology, the Queen of the Sciences. Its' water comes from underneath the earth, from springs which only the Spirit knows. Its trunk is philosophy, the love of wisdom for the sake of the Love of Christ. Its' branches are the Arts on the left and the Sciences on the right. And this Tree, if we have become disciples of Christ, is now our home. It grew from the small seed of the Last Adam who died and yet lives, and now it is a tree taller than the clouds. The only problems is that false birds, lovers of philosophy who did not first seek to master theology, are nesting in the branches. We who are spiritual must drive them out, let them find their own tree. For I am sure there is another tree in the City of Man. Let them not seek to despoil and strip the fruits of learning of the Tree in the City of God. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations, yet man uses them for war. How terrible it is that science has become a severed branch, as it were, from the whole Tree! No wonder it bears strange fruit - the apples of discord and of war. Technology in itself is not evil, yet man uses technology. And much of technology is used for evil purposes.

Whoever said "Knowledge is power" was wrong. Knowledge is not power; knowledge is humility. Thou art my Rock and my Redeemer, Lord Christ. If I build not on Thee, in heart, mind, soul, strength, I build on sand. My house will crumble, my glass shall shatter, and I shall be as a foul wind that departs and is no longer seen.

2003-03-14T09:32:00.000-05:00

My life right now feels like a lucid dream. Everything flows. Fortunately, the Lord has ordained that this world be regular and predictable. No solipism here, no sir.

2003-03-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

I need to pick and clean my room -
The inner room of my tabernacled flesh.
I see in it the lights of tombs
Tapers lit for souls long dead.

I am awake, my friends
I am awake.
But I cannot control, no, I cannot control this - ah
I need to sleep.

So sing me down to sleep, bring me down to sleep,
Pray me down to sleep, I lay me down to sleep
My soul to keep.

2003-03-14T09:18:00.000-05:00

I feel a fullness in the brain of clutter. The House needs to be swept and put in order; the door barred so the seven evil spirits will not displace the Seven-fold Spirit of God.

2003-03-14T09:16:00.000-05:00

Don't read Merton's Seeds of Contemplation and then pray for spiritual experience. That's what I did about 6 months and here I am today. Does anyone know of any good monks in the Lancaster Country, PA area? (I'm serious.)

2003-03-14T09:10:00.000-05:00

Christianity with mysticism has quite a punch. I would be sane right now - that is under control - if it wasn't that I'm living in an Enlightenment-based society, which accepts only the eyes of sense and reason. But the eye of contemplation - imagination directed at an object applying Scripture to it - is a central part of the Christian faith. This I have learned from S & R + The Orthodox Way If only I wasn't so intelligent and with such a good memory for what I've read. I grew up reading and now it's all flooding back. I need to dam the door a little bit.

I like surrealist art

2003-03-14T09:05:00.000-05:00

A little bit of advice to y'all. Don't do what I did. Don't try to use nonlinear logic systems, compositional fugue (as per Godel, Escher, Bach), a Hopkinsian philosophy of poetry. Walk in a line, not in a circle. There is a reason the world is round - it's a metaphor for conversion - transmutation - into one's true self, being born again. But it was easier for people in the days when the earth was flat. The King of the North was evil. He is the City of Man. And the Queen of the South came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, just as we come to hear the wisdom of Christ. And thus we enter the Kingdom of God. It is both within us, as Julian of Norwich says, and without us, as it is called in the NT "the Dispersion (diaspora) an ecclesia of ecclesiae. I think either Presbyterian or Episcopal church government can be read out of Scripture. I think that was intentional. In a republican society, you want Presbyterian. In a society of kings and emperors, you want Episcopal.

2003-03-14T08:36:00.000-05:00

Spiritual Breakthroughs can Lead to Mental Breakdowns

Turns out I have a susceptibility to mania. And this was sparking by trying to synthesize Dr. Krabbendam's Sovereignty & Responsibility with Chalcedonian Christology with random quotes from Christics mystics, East and West, with St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation with Walker Percy's The Last Selp Help Book You'll Ever Need with some other stuff, including Eco's Name of the Rose (a brief course in semiotics and the Providence of God, as Sayers might call it) all that I was learning in school. Finally reading The Orthodox Way triggered a chain of events that has had led me here, to where I am probably going to enter the hospital. Somehow I knew this whole thing would happen as soon as I saw Girl, Interrupted That was a few weeks ago; my continuing time on the Internet, my attempts to develop a philosophy of language (Berek + Barfield), my attempt to understand the covenant triadically and other such mystical ikons of our faith...

I ask all your prayers. Remember me before the Throne, as I hope to remember you. I have a whole developed theory of metaphor but I won't get into because it'll make me crazy again. The norepipephrine pumping from my brain makes me feel inebriated and that all the neurons are sparking at one. I'm first going to talk to a psychiatrist, then I'm going to try to talk my parents into let me talk to a monastic, perhaps best a novice. I wish Brother Lawrence were still alive here. Humans are basically imitative beings; I need to imitate someone calm, cool, and collected. By that imitation, I think I can calm myself down. BTW, I'm cold, very cold. The inner man and the outer man are becoming unqlued from each other. For now at least, I need to be slightly medicated to prevent that from happening further. I've been able to do biofeedback to a limited extent since reading St. Athanasius (since I was studying psychology - the care of the soul) at the time. Now I need to learn silence and mental quietness so I can flush out all the excessive neurotransmitters in my brain. I need to stop sparking or the thing will go up in smoke.

The soul is a stamp placed on wax, I say. The only problem is I read books that were very heavy for my soul, too much of an intellectual banquet, and didn't balance out my inner diet. Of course, my outer diet was the same way - unhealthly, lost 7 pounds. But anyway, I pray the stamp won't crush the clay. I know I'm close. I need to "find da balance," as Mr. Myagi said. Pray for me.

2003-03-13T10:09:00.000-05:00

Change of direction: this blog will be about other things now, not about theology. I have a lot of living to do before I can say anything about theology.

2003-03-13T09:55:00.000-05:00

Still, people shouldn't be too hard on Calvinists. Most of them don't have any malicious intent. They just don't know any better. I was once that way. I thought I had it all figured out. Then I realized Scripture's too big to fit in any intellectual paradigm, particularly one developed during the Enlightenment. People should quake in fear before writing systematic theology. As if theology could be neatly systematized - as if it's not one undivided fabric.