And the Lord did Grin…

Things may be looking for us. After, what, four years or so of bad hands…

• M got some great news today. Hopefully more later as things develop.
• Fr. Director has confirmed that I have a full draft of the diss. Of course, it’s still needs quite a bit of work, but a full draft is a Good Thing.
• The foot progresses. This week I took my first shower since February 9th… The picc line is out, I can walk fairly well and the doctor is planning to stop the oral antibiotics in a few weeks. It’s still a bit swollen and normally hurts by evening, but this is a lot better than it has been.

On the other hand…

• I imagine most people have seen the Seabury-Western news. S-W isn’t the only one in these straits. There’s a reason why an almost PhD in New Testament and homiletics is boning up on Linux and SQL books…

Lite Randomness

• Had a nice cup of coffee with Fr. Chris yesterday while he was down on a whirlwind business trip. That’s one of the joys of blogging—when real connections get made that go beyond just text on a computer screen.
• His talk about moving and work made me realize we’ll be doing that soon too. The academic job thing isn’t looking likely for the coming year so I’ll be looking in IT type things. I’m considering picking up a MySQL certification…
• I wandered around the Anglican blogosphere yesterday. It can be a vicious little environment… Nevertheless, as much as I’d sometimes like to wash my hands of the larger environment and just focus on me, my family, and my parish home, things are happening out there that will be effecting the church for quite a while to come. Protesting about policies—or the next prayerbook—when it arrives at the local parish is too little, too late…
• I got a call yesterday that one of our priests had died. Not entirely unexpected, but sad all the same. Of your charity, I bid your prayers for the repose of the soul of Fr. Bill.

New Submission for the Journal of Advanced Toddler Studies

Tiko the Squirrel: Arboral Innocent or Indigenous Revolutionary?

Abstract: Dora the Explorer’s furry companion Tiko the Squirrel seems no more than a lovable addition to the show’s regular cast of characters. But does his Spanish-only linguistic stance and his distinctive indigenous outfit reveal a deeper anti-Imperialist agenda? Special attention is given to his place of residence: the “nut farm.” Comparisons will be drawn between this utopian agrarian collective patrolled by ominously uniformed ‘public saftey” officers holding signs of “rojo” and “verde” and Stalinist agricultural ventures. The paper will end with speculation concerning the identity of the anonymous donor who purported gave several thousand pounds of nuts to the government of Hugo Chavez.

Morning Thought

Zeus, who guided men to think,
who has laid it down that wisdom,
comes alone through suffering.
Still there drips in sleep against the heart
grief of memory; against
our pleasure we are temperate.
From the gods who sit in grandeur
grace comes somehow violent.

Aeschylus, trans. Lattimore, Agamemnon, ll. 176-183.

Comments at the Episcopal Cafe

There have been some questions floating around about why there are so few comments left at the Episcopal Cafe.

Thoughts?

There’s Gotta Be a Name…

…for the weird phenomenon where you copy and paste a bit of code from one part of your pragram to another and it works fine in the first place but gives you errors in the second…

The Bible Meme

Here’s a meme from bls:

1. What translation of the Bible do you like best?

My favorite translation is the Vulgate. Every act of translation is an act of interpretation, and I really like Jerome’s interpretive choices. Once upon a time I was part of a group that read through Genesis, reading each verse in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. I was quite fascinated with the way that Jerome navigated between the Greek and the Hebrew.

As a result, my favorite Bible for study and reading is a facing page NT that has the eclectic Greek text on one side and the Vulgate on the other.

When I need an English language Bible, I prefer the RSV. We managed to get some of the last sets of 2 vol. Daily Office books that use the RSV rather than the NRSV.

2. Old or New Testament?

It’s impossible to understand one without the other. Christians have always contended that you need the NT to understand the OT properly, but what so many of us today have forgotten is how thoroughly the NT is saturated by OT images, thoughts, and themes. As Augustine and Jerome both insisted, the best way to learn to interpret Scripture better is to read more Scripture; I’d put a finer point on it and say that the best way to understand the New Testament better is to read the Old Testament more.

3. Favorite Book of the Bible?

Well, I love the Psalms.

I’m also a big fan of the Gospel of Matthew—which is good since that’s what my dissertation is on…

Deuteronomy is a classic. That’s the book that starts talking about intention—that the Law is about a way of being, a fundamental orientation towards God, not just things you do and don’t do. I see it as the inspiration for a lot of people in our tradition including Jeremiah and Jesus himself.

Recently I’ve been caught up again in Ecclesiastes; I’ve read through it several times since my spider bite. I hear in it a call to humility: all our works, wealth, learning, and accomplishments are ultimately vanity. What is important—and it underlines this by presenting it several times throughout the book, returning to it like a touchstone—is the recognition and enjoyment of the simple facts of reality: good food, good drink, good companionship, and the sun on your face.

Of course, I can’t forget Ephesians, Colossians, 2nd Peter, and Revelation. And the Song of Songs.

4. Favorite Chapter?

That’s hard to say. Rev 21-22 have always been favorites of mine… I’m also quite partial to Ps 107. And Ps 1. And Ps 18. Colossians 1 is also not to be missed. I could keep going for a while but I think I’ll stop there…

5. Favorite Verse? (feel free to explain yourself if you have to)

There’s no way I can answer this one; I have so many favorites. I’ll point to just two: Ps 70:1 (O God, make speed to save me; O Lord, make haste to help me) and Eph 5:2 (Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an fragrant offering and sacrifice to God). The first is commended by Egyptian monks as the ideal breath-prayer in John Cassian in The Conferences. Given Cassian’s recommendation, it’s no surprise that Benedict uses it to start the Offices as we do today. The second, in the words of a wise man of my acquaintance, can be considered the heart of Pauline Spirituality.

6. Bible character you think you’re most like?

I’d like to say David but my life’s not nearly that exciting. I aspire to be more like John of Patmos.       

7. One thing from the Bible that confuses you?

Hey—that blessing that Jacob gave to the twelve tribes this morning (Gen 49:1-2 totally boggled the mind. I’m suspecting some serious textual corruption in the transmission of that passage because some of it seemed to make no sense at all. It made me wonder what the Fathers did with it…

8. Moses or Paul?

Paul.

9. A teaching from the Bible that you struggle with or don’t get?

Teachings around obedience are always hard for me. That’s one of the reasons why I need to follow a Benedictine path. [And one of the reasons why I'm Anglican...;-)]

10. Coolest name in the Bible?

I’ve always been a fan of the three young men: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

I won’t formally tag folks, but if it looks like fun, give it a rip…

Random Stuff

• I’m really slammed with stuff right now—I’ll not be posting or commenting much for a bit.  I’ll be back before too long, though.
• I saw the moving from a crib to a big bed that Marshall+ posted in the comments below. I’m not convinced and I’ll tell you why… As far as I’m concerned, a “wrote-down prayer” (as we call ‘em down here) ought to be what I’m thinking and feeling, but just more eloquent and with more depth. My crib to big bed transition prayer at 2 in the morning was, “Father in Heaven, please make this darn baby sleep instead of playing, giggling, or roaming around the upstairs. Amen.” And to my eyes, certain elements of that were, well, missing from the suggested prayer below.
• I was struck the other evening that Ps 59 would make an awesome voice-over at the start of a vampire-slaying movie. I blame it on verse 2…

I’m Back…Sort Of

Hope y’all had a good Christmas as the season draws to a close. I’m back but not really “back”. Things are extremely busy and I won’t be online much. (Except to be loading freakin’ Oracle tables row by row through a PHP portal since my SQL*Loader is messed up…)

Speaking of how hacked off I am at Oracle, I’m thinking that SQLite really should be the hot new thing. And yes, I realize that sentence made no sense to anyone other than computer geeks but there’s a practical(?) payoff—I think SQLite (a small-profile database system) will give me functionality to program a method of calculating liturgical dates that can easily be switched back and forth between different sanctoral/temporal cycles. So moving between calculating a date in the modern revised common lectionary and a 10th century Benedictine kalendar would be fast and simple—and just a click away for a web visitor…

I think my feed reader said I had some 500 items to catch up on and I’ve seen some interesting email to which I’ll respond when able and yes, I’m gonna do our buddy Ælfric Bata for the history meme that Jonathan and Michelle both tagged me for.

Ack… More later.

Random Bullets

• Started the new job; it’s keeping me busy.
• Had dinner tonight with the amazing Dr. Nokes.
• Baking cookies fill our kitchen with more to come.
• I’ve been having a number of thoughts on the place of bishops and on conciliarism that I haven’t had time to write about recently.
• Enjoy those O antiphons! bls is keeping us on top of them…