Grounding Book

Back in the early 90s, finally away from home and liberated from prison-school....I couldn't have been more *self-orbiting* as a college student, chasing booze and broads.

I had no idea what was going on in Rwanda, i.e. the genocide.

In fact I had really no idea about what happened until I stumbled upon the motion picture - Hotel Rwanda - recently.

My SIL actually went on a mission to Rwanda a year or so ago, to a village her church has sort of adopted.

She recommended that I read - Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust - the life story of a woman who survived the genocide by hiding in a tiny bathroom with 7 others for 3 months.

It's the sort of book that puts all of our trivial grievances (e.g. long lines at CVS, traffic,...) in the proper perspective.

I would say it falls into the *must read* category, for just about everyone.

Wow!

Apparently ABC has a new show debuting this month:



It's based on the book "Good Christian Bitches". And it's produced by the invert who did the whore-romp "Sex And The City".

Wow, again.

I say short this one. Advertisers are going to take a beating. Wal-Mart is already stepping out, even before the show started!

Plus, no one is really going to watch it - neither Christians nor born-again pagans.

But I Still Have Never Smoked Pot In My Life!

In my 37.5 years as a Catholic I had never before attended a non-Catholic *mass*.

Yeah I'd been to a couple of Protestant wedding ceremonies, I've even donned a beanie at a Jewish wedding, and I've probably been to more than 40 different Catholic Churches before.

That is until this past Sunday when I attended my buddy's non-denominational church down here in Naples.

It really was a terrific experience and we'll be back each week this month.

I really had no idea what to expect going in. The facility was modern, lush, and gorgeous. There was coffee and donuts everywhere. The kids were all whisked off into classrooms for the service. I sat on a chair so comfortable one could sleep on - as opposed to a splinter-shooting wooden pew...

It started off with singing, lots of singing. A modern band played about 5 long songs - songs that you'll never hear in a Catholic Church or on the radio north of the Mason-Dixon line - while the thought-inducing, soul-searching lyrics flashed on an overhead screen.

There were a few short readings from Scripture....and then the minister delivered a very good 20 minute sermon. And that was it. No ceremony. No tacky money collecting. Nobody ran for the door at the conclusion; people actually hung out for a long time afterwards (kids were running around the playground and the gymnasium).

Oh yeah, and my kids ASKED if they could go back next week!

Three years ago this same friend had asked me to join his family there when we were snowbirding but I admit I was extremely uncomfortable with the idea of going into a foreign Christian(!) church. It half felt like a betrayal of my Catholic faith. Plus there's always a latent fear of the unknown.

But I've done a lot of Bible-reading and soul searching over the past handful of years and now my initial discomfort seems absolutely ridiculous. I mean the people that I meet, in general, from non-denominational churches are pretty much the nicest, most-welcoming, non-judgmental people I ever have the pleasure of dealing with.

See also - Finally Done!

Book Rec - Pilgrim's Progress

I just finished - The Pilgrim's Progress - the Christian soul-searching classic that was never assigned once in the course of my *liberal arts* education. (free Kindle link .)

And I must say - what a terrific book!

I just can't believe that my Catholic high school didn't REQUIRE studying it.

Of course, after thinking about this omission it dawned on me that this masterpiece might have been deemed *too Protestant* by the Vatican.

Just Googled for an explanation and I came up with this:

As you pointed out, Pilgrim's Progress was and is a very anti-Catholic book. Seeing as its author, John Bunyan, was a Baptist writer serving time in jail for opposing an Anglican church in England at the same time England was living in fear of the even-more hierarchical Roman church, you can understand why he might be anti-Pope.


The basic tenant of the book - that the Christian life is a journey that must be accomplished on one's own, is as about as Baptist / Puritanical as it gets. Like all Puritans, he celebrated rather than suppressed emotion, and wanted to ensure the "personal relationship" with Jesus took center stage. (Yes, Puritans were not the dour people popularly portrayed. Want to read a theology that celebrates sex between man and wife? Look to the Puritans - not the Catholics!)


These two biggies - the unmediated experience and the anti-hierarchical church polity - are probably the biggest bugaboos for a Catholic.


Beyond that, the book presents salvation as an act of free will, and seems to completely discount election or predestination. These issues may also cause some interesting discussions.


That said, this is the second best selling book of all time, just behind the Bible. Even if a good Christian were to disagree, I'd suggest it is edifying to read and think. The praise of Acts 17:11 comes to mind:


Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.


As a Baptist believer in soul competency, Bunyan himself probably wouldn't have wanted you to accept his opinions without considering them against scripture. His genius was to rehabilitate allegory from static symbolism and push the metaphor into dynamic journey and learning that could be used to direct a believer's life.

Just imagine how many Harvard students have never read this landmark book or even the Bible...

Who Knew?

Of course it makes sense.

Jesus still reigns on Earth - despite Big Media and Big Government obliteration.

I'm still a HeadBook newbie, but I'm studying it more and more these days. Most likely going to do little Facebook Fan Pages for this blog and for HomeschoolDad.com. This way earthlings don't have to subscribe to my blog via a Reader. If they *fan* my page they can be alerted to new content via Fbook.

Starting to get mad at myself for chronically underestimating the power of social media!

Book Review - Homeschooling, The Right Choice

A father and son at the foot of Mt. Rushmore:

Boy - Hey Dad, do you think they’ll ever make a monument to homeschoolers?

Father - You’re looking at it, son!

That was a comic/cartoon in Homeschooling: The Right Choice by Christopher Klicka.

Written by one of the founding (sort of) members of the HSLDA - Home School Legal Defense Association - it was unlike most other books I've read in this genre.

It was really a historical, legal, and moral perspective rather than another how-to-homeschool guidebook.

Klicka argues that all self-identifying devout Christians ought to be educating their own children. So if you fall into this category the book is DEFINITELY something to borrow from your library or buy on Amazon.

Basically, homeschooling has only recently been re-legalized - and Klicka and his organization played THE major role in reclaiming the educational rights enjoyed by 3,000,000 homeschooled kids today.

Here are my book excerpts:

The students attending teacher’s colleges and pursuing education degrees are, on the average, below average on SAT scores. Consistently, these students who are planning to major in education scored below the national average. Such students’ average verbal score is 406 (out of a possible 800; national average is 422) and their math score average is 441 (out of a possible 800; national average is 474). (p31)

In fact, a U.S. Department of Education study demonstrates that public school teachers are more likely to send their children to a private school than any other group. (p32)

The College Board "recentered" its test scores....by adding 80 points to individual scores on the verbal section of the SAT and 30 points to scores on the mathematics section....a numbers game to lift the average SAT score from 424 to 500. (p34)

Horace Mann quote,

"What the church has been for medieval man the public school must become for democratic and rational man. God will be replaced by the concept of the public good....The common [public] schools....shall create a more farseeing intelligence and a more pure morality than has ever existed among communities of men." (p82)

John Dewey, author of the modern public school system...

"I believe all education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself....Education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform [religion being bypassed]....Every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth....In this way the teacher is always the prophet of the true god and the usherer of the true kingdom of god."

"Faith in the prayer-hearing God is an unproved and outmoded faith. There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, the immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes."

Dewey also emphasized "social unification" as the goal of public schools in order to promote "state-consciousness."

"The American people is conscious that its schools serve best the cause of religion in serving the cause of religion in serving the cause of social unification; and that under certain conditions schools are more religious in substance and in promise without any of the conventional badges and machinery of religious instruction than they could be in cultivating these forms at the expense of state-consciousness." (p84)

In the late 1980s Dr. John Goodland wrote a report for the National Education Association arguing that one of their goals is to re-educate children to turn away from the values of their parents. He said:

"Our goal is behavioral change. The majority of our youth still hold to the values of their parents and if we do not resocialize them to accept change, our society may decay." (p85)

In 1923,....J. Gresham Mecham, sounded the alarm concerning the direction of attendance at the public schools becoming compulsory:

"...Freedom of thought in the Middle Ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of the children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist. Such a tyranny, supported as it is by a perverse technique used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past, which despite their weapons of fire and sword permitted thought, at least, to be free.

"The truth is that the materialistic paternalism of the present day, if allowed to go unchecked, will rapidly make of America on huge ‘Main Street’ where spiritual adventure will be discouraged and democracy will be regarded as consisting in the reduction of all mankind to the proportions of the narrowest and least gifted of the citizens." (p95-96)

Many families are turning to home schooling as the solution to the decaying public school system. However, home schooling is not a new idea - it is the restoration of an old and successful idea. It is not only a return to effective, parent-directed education; it is a moral and spiritual reformation. (p103)

...the national average of parents spending approximately seven minutes a day with face-to-face contact with their children, according to a study from Stanford University. (p125)

Academically, the home schoolers have generally excelled, but some critics have continued to challenge them on an apparent "lack of socialization" or "isolation from real world." Often there is a charge that home schoolers are not learning how to live in the "real world." However a closer look at public school training shows that it is actually those public school children who are not living in the real world.

For instance, public school children are confined for at least 180 days each year with minimal opportunity to be exposed to the workplace or to go on field trips. The children are trapped with a group of children their own age with little chance to relate to children of other ages or adults. The children spend their time pooling their ignorance. They learn in a spiritual and moral vacuum where there are no absolute standards. They are given little to no responsibility, and everything is provided for them. The opportunity to pursue their interests and to apply their unique talents is stifled. Actions by public students rarely have consequences, as discipline is lax and passing from grade to grade is automatic. The students are not really prepared to operate in the home (family) or the workplace, which comprise a major part of the "real world" after graduation. (p127-128)

For example, DuPont de Nemours surveyed education in America in the early 1800s and discovered nearly a 99 percent literacy rate:

"Most young Americans...can read, write, and cipher. Not more than four in a thousand are unable to write legibly - even neatly....the Bible is read; it is considered a duty to read it to children...In America a great number of people read the Bible." (p153)

Sadly, even within the homeschooling world there are many people (militant anti-Christians) who bash the poop out of this group that won educational freedom FOR THEM.

But whatever...

I've got too many things to do to worry about other people.

See also - Hired A Homeschool Legal Posse.

The Next Strata Of Craziness

My left hand is killing me right now. I thought I felt a slight pain in it this afternoon but went to hit range balls anyway. I was having a bad session so I may have hit an extra hundred or so in a fit of frustration.

I've been playing golf and working hard on my game for over 20 years now. But if I develop say a chronic wrist or hand problem or perhaps suffer a gruesome injury there obviously I'll be done with golf and all that work and progress will in many ways be for naught.

These are sobering thoughts that beg the question - am I in fact using my time on this doomed planet wisely?

I met a guy yesterday who just moved to Queens from essentially fly-over country. He and his beautiful wife came to start a church here in New York. They have no money really, no other work lined up, they've two of their own and two adopted foster kids whom they homeschool,...

I asked and he said sincerely, "God will provide..."

Say what you will about this guy but he's got real balls and there are plenty of other brave souls out there doing what to the vast majority of us seems unfathomable. In fact I'm on my third reading in the past year(!) of The 4-Hour Workweek and I'm paying particular attention to the heroic stories of Morons who quit the grind and followed their passions.

Meanwhile I spend my scant free time smacking around meaningless little white balls - albeit further and straighter these days.

The more I ruminate upon it, the more I'm tempted to quit golf green-light my wife's desire to quit her lucrative yet dehumanizing Wall Street job.

It's probably time to man-up and see what we're made of. After all she and the kids (me too!) would be better off with her home than with a little more rapidly depreciating dollars in the bank.

Would such an overt act of financial self-destruction be crazy? Most certainly....but no more outlandish than say homeschooling my kids!

Again, check out that book if you haven't already. I'll say it again - I'M ON MY THIRD RE-READ IN A YEAR! It would be too weak to call it, among many other labels, a self-help book. More accurately it's a treatise on modern day *self-propulsion*.

This guy, Bill Rockwell, advanced very far in the 1997 World Putting Championship - beating numerous tour pros!

Extortionary Church Taxes

We just signed up my son for CCD (Catholic church school) for next year.

Guess how much they are CHARGING for the classes plus the *first communion* fee...

How about $195 !!!

Okay - the teachers are volunteers and they simply use the extant school buildings. So what exactly is the money for?

As I've mentioned before (I think).... in 30+ years and at nearly 10 different parishes, the Catholic Church has NEVER ONCE asked me for my *time*, only money.

A Rare Good Motion Picture For The Kids?

From a critic:

It's rare to find a teen-geared film that doesn't rely on crudity or titillation in order to entertain. What's more, there are positive messages about family and faith, two ingredients often left out of movies aimed at a young demographic. With their fully realized portrayals, AnnaSophia Robb and Dennis Quaid bring honor to Bethany and her father. Director Sean McNamara has used CGI with standout results, using effects to aid the story, not become it. And on top of that, this film will undoubtedly begin a dialogue between believers and those who don't understand what people like Bethany Hamilton have found, despite what they've lost.

No doubt many of y'all already saw the ads for this flick.

But I had to read about it online since I don't really watch color TV - AND, if I do, there's no way I'm going to break my string of 10+ years of skipping commercials via the DVR.

In fact we still don't have a TV in the house outside of the Zenith in our old bedroom which is now the guest room. No TV in the living room or in any other common rooms - a terrific tactic to keep away loafing houseguests! I'm trying to wean the family entirely off the idiot box and I've almost succeeded. The only junk that gets watched is really my sports (golf and basketball). But my wife keeps nagging me, hard actually, to buy a flat screen and hang it in our bedroom so she can watch 7 minutes of Desperate Housewives or some other crap before conking out. I've fought her as long as I could but she's getting pissed at me now and I may have to surrender. I've basically proved to her that she doesn't need one and that it can dangerously keep one if not both of us up later than we should be. But, a typical stubborn first wife....she doesn't care.

Last week I saw forty-something inch flat screens at Target for less than $350. Any suggestions?

I'm thinking I may need to get an idiot box that can stream Netflix or something. I really have no idea what's out there spec-wise or what I should buy. At least I waited long enough for the prices to crash - now I can buy 2-3 idiot boxes for what some Morons paid for a single one not long ago.

While Some Think A Stock Market Crash Is THE END...

Did y'all know that the world was going to end on May 21st, 2011?

Well the world isn't really ending, but on that date somehow Jesus will be returning to Earth according to one 'popular' guy I recently heard on the radio.

Here is his reasoning:

A commonly cited proof in favor of the May 21st date is:According to Camping, the number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven".

• Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.

• If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 722,449.

• The time between April 1 and May 21st is 51 days.

• 51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.

• (5 x 10 x 17)2 or (atonement x completeness x heaven)2 also equals 722,500.

Thus, Camping concludes that 5 x 10 x 17 is telling us a "story from the time Christ made payment for our sins until we're completely saved."

If that's true I'm going to have to do my best presentation and hope for *partial credit*.

But realize that if Jesus does return to Earth in about 6 weeks....then some of y'all are REALLY SCREWED!!!

Another Web Breakout?

Some *mom* who (I think) was a just a regular yet prolific blogger just published a book - One Thousand Gifts - two months ago. Her subject appears to be *everyday Christian gratitude*. The book trailer:

Now I've only read a little of her work - nothing that I can remember off-hand but it must have been well-done because I subscribed to her blog a little while ago. Heck she has 27,000 readers!

Her book is just out and already has a Tim Ferriss-esque 282 reviews and sports a 5-star rating on Amazon. (Although there is one little controversy.)

You have to root for and admire just about anyone who breaks out from obscurity through the dint of their own hard work, no?

Thou Shall Be Holier!

You have to feel bad for Susan Wise Bauer, author of the terrific classical homeschool guide - The Well-Trained Mind.

Recently she's been besieged by some members of the Christian community for being *secular* - or at least she feels she's been besieged.

Susan, a minister's wife(!), has decided to defend herself through a couple of blog posts. After all a homeschooling book that's reviled by the largest (50-70%?) sector of its target market is going to suffer big time.

The thing is, Susan not only declares herself a devout Christian, but she also fought against her *secular* publisher to include a good deal of Christianity in her popular - Story of the World series for young'uns.

My son has actually listened to a little bit of that (audiobook); it was tough to get your hands on it at the library!. Ironically the only complaint I ever heard about The Story of the World was from a libertarian atheist who thought it *too religious*. This homeschooling *mom* told me she had to pre-screen each audio track and skip all references to *God*, etc. - because, obviously, her 5 year old daughter would be irretrievably harmed from listening!

Whatever.

I want to link to Susan's lengthy self-defense which is actually a re-print of hers from several years ago - obviously she's suffered this criticism continually:

A Golden Oldie

Apparently some speakers at a recent homeschooling conference, one in which she was also speaking, were bad-mouthing her.

I do feel bad for Bauer (no relation to 'Jack'). But hey, if you want to traffic in an inherently sensitive/political subject like *history* and market your take to the public....then controversy sort of goes with the territory!

Click here - to read her other blog post defense.

Coincidentally, I just borrowed the WTM tome from the library yesterday, for yet another reading.

See also my wonderful post from last year - Book Summary - The Well-Trained Mind.

Wow! - Edified By A Child

The kid is only 11 years old.

Squeezing A $100 Million Church Through The Eye Of A Needle

A commenter from a post earlier today introduced me to Joel Osteen - someone I'd never heard of. He's apparently the *most popular* preacher in America:

So the critics assail him for being too light on Jesus and Scripture; for promising his followers worldly rewards; etc. Almost like an infomercial that's too good to be true, right?

Well I for one love infomercials. I watch them quite often on my low-def, round-screen color TV - even if I NEVER buy anything (only The Bean). Even though I'm not a big fan of brainwashing, the marketing is usually ingenious. The packaging of these too-good-to-be-true products really does highlight latent consumer demand.

So the commercial success of Oprah, American Idol, iMorons,..., and the *lite* ministry of Joel Osteen is definitely preaching some truth worth noting - even if it's not the TRUTH outsiders are holding them too.

You know the Jesuits were (and might still be!) VERY UN-ORTHODOX in their methods, in how they courageously spread the Word to frontier heathens. It's all too easy for armchair do-nothings to sit back and criticize. Here's my boy Will Durant:

"Wherever men do things, other men will arise who will explain to them how things should be done."

Indeed!

So I say *so what* if Joel Osteen isn't running the perfect ministry for whatever YOU think YOUR NEEDS are. YOUR fear of him becoming a Big Media caricature is just that, YOUR SELF-INDUCED problem. Live and let live (and tune out Big Media). Like I said, I'd never even heard of this guy before today. And I'm not afraid at all to investigate him further.

Heavenly Auto-Biography

I just read preacher Greg Laurie's little autobiography - Lost Boy - and it was pretty interesting.

Who is he?

He's a very popular Christian evangelical-type based out in California (see his website - Harvest Ministries). Being a life-long suffering *Northeast Catholic* I'd never before heard sermons like I first heard from him on the radio, down in Naples two years ago.

Greg had a rough life. He was born a bastard and had to endure the misadventures of his drunken whore mother; and he also was a stereotypical drug-abusing hippie - not exactly the conventional path one might expect of a world-renowned minister.

Now if I can only figure out who that other amazing Irish/British preacher was that I once heard on my car's AM/FM stereo...

Bible Study Update

I did just finally see this movie:



It was interesting to see the film in the sense that I now have some palpable visual images to go with the umpteen times I've heard and read about the *Passion*.

And, as part of my ongoing, self-directed Bible study program, I just finished typing out the Book of Psalms - before that I had transcribed into a Google Doc the entire book of Proverbs. So after all this Old Testament work I feel like a have a much better handle on it than on the New Testament.

Without much of a plan, for starters I think I'm just going to re-read and re-study the Gospel of John.

Oh, and guess what, my local parish is trying to get me to teach CCD to 14 1st-graders.  I have to talk to the religious education woman next week about what kind of commitment it requires.  Remember, I hope to be snowbirding in Miami for January AND February this coming year.

See also - Modified Bible Study.

Book Rec - Surpised By Joy

Personally, I realized the worthless of *the news* years ago. And I've fastidiously shielded myself from all that nonsense since then. It couldn't be more true, that expression I heard:

"Trying to find out what's going on by reading newspapers is like trying to find out what time it is by watching the second-hand of a clock."

Here's C.S. Lewis waxing on the same subject, many decades before newspapers descended to the joke they are today:

Even in peacetime I think those are very wrong who say that schoolboys should be encouraged to read the newspapers. Nearly all that a boy reads there in his teens will be know before he is twenty to be have been false in emphasis and interpretation, if not in fact as well, and most of it will have lost all importance. Most of what he remembers he will therefore have to unlearn; and he will probably have acquired an incurable taste for vulgarity and sensationalism and the fatal habit of fluttering from paragraph to paragraph to learn how an actress has been divorced in California, a train derailed in France, and quadruplets born in New Zealand. (p159)

That was from Surprised By Joy - an autobiographical sketch of his early life.

While I have next to no other quotes from that book highlighted in my notes, I found it a most enjoyable and most edifying read. My notes are, however, filled with many obscure words that I have to look up: ergastulum, cantle, nonce, batrachise, piebald, dyarchy, eructation, pother, slag, corvée, askesis, longueur, anthroposophist, hypostasize, numinous, stile, dram...

Alright here's one other deserving excerpt that addresses "Wyvern" the high school C.S. Lewis attended:

But the essential evil of public-school life, as I see it, did not lie in either the sufferings of the fags or in the privileged arrogance of the Bloods. These were symptoms of something more all-pervasive, something which, in the long run, did most harm to the boys who succeeded best at school and were happiest there. Spiritually speaking, the deadly thing was that school life was almost wholly dominated by the social struggle; to get on, to arrive, or, having reached the top, to remain there, was the absorbing preoccupation. It is often, of course, the preoccupation of adult life as well; but I have not yet seen any adult society in which the surrender to this impulse was so total. And from it, at school as in the world, all sorts of meanness flow; the sycophancy that courts those higher in the scale, the cultivation of those whom it is well to know, the speedy abandonment of friendships that will not help on the upward path, the readiness to join the cry against the unpopular, the secret motive in almost every action. The Wyvernians seem to me in retrospect to have been the least spontaneous, in that sense the least boyish, society that I have ever known. It would perhaps not be too much to say that in some boys' lives everything was calculated to the great end of advancement. For this games were played; for this clothes, friends, amusements, and vices were chosen. (p 108-109)

I guess I'd always had an inkling of the cruel hierarchies of the old British schools, but I must say I was rather shocked reading about the Bloods and the fags. Lewis had to blacken upperclassmen's boots whenever they demanded it!

Though the scariest part of it was the fact that this suffocating student social scene had the explicit backing of school administrators. It was a power alliance not unlike what we have today between Big Business, Big Medicine, Big Education, Big Media, and Big Government - where unlikely partners conspire to retain power; where experts and custodians subjugate unwitting serfs via invisible walls and reduced opportunity.

It's not wonder why over the years so many millions have fled the prison of aristocratic Europe to come here....where they could, heretofore anyway, freely erect their own little jails.

See also - Introducing C.S. Lewis.

My Crazy Parents - 5 - Our Lady Of Blessed Vindictiveness

After 35 years at their local Catholic Church my parents have moved on down the road - to another Catholic Church.

My mother apparently was miffed at how their long-time parish handled the funeral of her mother last year. So she's taking her business elsewhere.

But here's the crazy part - SHE DOESN'T EVEN GO TO CHURCH and hasn't for years, only my father attends mass regularly.

So essentially SHE told him he had to go pray (for her?) somewhere else!

I just don't get it. One doesn't, or shouldn't, go to church based upon the imperfect HUMAN minister. That detail should be mostly irrelevant in the larger scheme.

And I know for a fact that my angelic grandmother wouldn't have given two hoots about the alleged *mishandling* of her funeral.

Lastly, now what are we going to do with my vindictive mother when her time comes?

A *burial at sea*?

See also:

My Crazy Parents - 4 - The Cluttered Fridge

My Crazy Parents - 3 - Russian Gangsters

My Crazy Parents - 2 - Bend Over

My Crazy Parents - 1 - Tiny Pics

Introducing C.S. Lewis

My spiritual journey marches onward and upward.

I just read a bit of C.S. Lewis - The Weight of Glory. Yeah, that's Lewis of the Narnia fame. He was also a famous Christian apologist. Here's an excerpt from the 66 page primer that made it into my notes:

No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as "what a man does with his solitude". It was one of the Wesley's, I think, who said that the New Testament knows nothing of solitary religion. We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of ourselves together. Christianity is already institutional in the earliest of its documents. The Church is the Bride of Christ. We are members of one another.

In our own age the idea that religion belongs to our private life - that it is, in fact, an occupation for the individual's hour of leisure - is at once paradoxical because this exaltation of the individual in the religious field springs up in an age when collectivism is ruthlessly defeating the individual in every other field. I see this even in a University. When I first went to Oxford the typical undergraduate society consisted of a dozen men, who knew one another intimately, hearing a paper by one of their own number in a small sitting-room and hammering out their problem till one or two in the morning. Before the war the typical undergraduate society had come to be a mixed audience of one or two hundred students assembled in a public hall to hear a lecture from some visiting celebrity. Even on those rare occasions when a modern undergraduate is not attending some such society he is seldom engaged in those solitary walks, or walks with a single companion, which built the minds of the previous generations. He lives in a crowd; caucus has replaced friendship. And this tendency not only exists both within and without the University, but is often approved. There is a crowd of busybodies, self-appointed masters of ceremonies, whose life is devoted to destroying solitude wherever solitude still exists. They call it "taking the young people out of themselves", or "waking them up", or "overcoming their apathy". If an Augustine, a Vaughan, a Traherne or a Wordsworth should be born in the modern world, the leaders of a Youth Organization would soon cure him. If a really good home, such as the home of Alcinous and Arete in the Odyssey or the Rostovs in War and Peace or an y of Charlotte M. Yonge's families existed to-day, it would be denounced as bourgeois and every engine of destruction would be levelled against it. And even where the planners fail and someone is left physically by himself, the wireless has seen to it that he will be - in a sense not intended by Scipio - never less alone than when alone. We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

That religion should be relegated to solitude in such an age is, then, paradoxical. But it is also dangerous for two reasons. In the first place, when the modern world says to us aloud, "You may be religious when you are alone," it adds under its breath, "and I will see to it that you never are alone."....In the second place, there is the danger that the real Christians who know Christianity is not a solitary affair may react against that error by simply transporting into our spiritual life that same collectivism which has already conquered our secular life. (p30-31)

I guess I'll read Surpised By Joy next - if only because it mysteriously showed up on our bookshelf. Neither my wife nor I have the slightest clue where it came from. (clicking that link - it appears that the entire book is online)

Eviction Chronicles - Wimping Out

I have vowed to get my scumbag landlord back for all his harassment, attempted theft of my money, etc.

And I came up with a nice little offensive that I was all set to deploy yesterday....until I was seized by Christian guilt.

When that earthquake or whatever struck Haiti recently, I and everyone else in the contact list of my Moronic landlord received an email from him. He was going to be *fundraising* for a relief mission to his native Haiti. In fact, I received this solicitation RIGHT in the middle of my first *eviction war* with him!

Yeah, sure, I'll forward some money to a serial thief....one who already owes me money and is trying to evict me!

There were tons of people on this email - and two other messages followed - although I wasn't CC'd on those.

The last email thanked everybody for their *generous donations* and announced an additional benefit concert that he was organizing for *victims* - a concert that's to take place this weekend.

My dastardly plan was to take this extensive email list, and from an anonymous new email account....I was going to email EVERYBODY that he apparently knew a message along these lines:

I hope this *fundraising* effort is fully audited. (my landlord) is a prolific crook having stiffed banks, contractors, tenants, utilities, credit card companies, architects, lawyers, and God knows who else to the tune of millions. In fact, (my landlord) just filed for bankruptcy this past week!

And I'd attach a copy of last week's *midnight* bankruptcy filing.

How would you like to be him and have to face all these donors this weekend after they've been informed the night before from an email such as this?

It would probably embarrass the $hit of him. You see, not everybody knows the status his *business*. He fronts with smiles, $1,000 suits, and lies straight to everyone's face - "Yeah, business is good....Things are picking up..."

This was one of my best plans ever; I must say I even impressed myself with it. Hit him right where it counts, no?

My wife was in tears laughing at my conniving, "YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY DO IT!", she said.

But I just couldn't. The line *forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us* was ringing in my head.

My faith really compels me to turn the other cheek?

Shucks!

I guess now that I have all my money back, (i.e. security deposit and last month's rent) I have to really contemplate future antagonism. I don't want to cross the ethical line into his territory.



Maybe I should, when May rent comes due, just tell him that I sent the money to Haiti in his name?

For the prior installment, see - Eviction Chronicles - Moronic Poker Game.