FuriousThinking

incident: Rampant Materialism

incident — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:38:37 +0000

$ egrep '^[0-9]' 365.txt | awk 'BEGIN {sum=0} {sum = sum + $1} END {print sum}'
304

There’s an Internet thing going around about getting rid of 365 possessions in 2009. It occurs to me that 365 possessions should be plenty to be getting on with. So here’s my stab at what I’d keep.

Turns out that’s about 300 things, many of them books. There are many, many items I want rather than need.

Stop reading now if you don’t like strangely revealing lists.

I wonder if I’ve left anything obvious out. Do tell.

Items marked [r] can be replenished: that is, we might have a small stock, but we’ll call it 1 item for now.

Let’s say our hero (me) has a place to live, with basic furniture, kitchen and conveniences. Let’s not count perishables like food as possessions, but we will count cleaning products.

Given that I still have 65 items to go, I guess I could probably count my house and furnishings here too. :oD

Hygiene:
1 bar of soap [r]
1 container of shampoo [r]
1 tube of toothpaste [r]
1 roll of toilet paper [r]
1 toothbrush
1 straight razor
1 strop
1 shaving brush
1 safety razor
1 pack of 5 razor blades [r]
1 shaving mirror
1 electric razor for haircuts
5 towels

Clothes:
10 pairs of socks
10 boxer shorts
10 t-shirts
3 shirts
4 jumpers
4 trousers
2 tracksuit pants
2 pairs of shoes
1 light jacket
1 heavy coat
2 wooly hats
2 pairs of gloves
1 scarf
1 suit jacket
1 suit pants
1 formal shirt
1 pair of formal shoes
2 ties

Accessories:
2 pairs of glasses
1 pair of clip-on shades
1 wallet
1 ’swiss card’ penknife
1 pen [r]
1 keyring with keys
1 mobile phone
1 mobile phone charger
1 laptop computer
1 laptop charger
1 external hard disk
1 external hard disk power adapter
1 external speaker system
1 shoulder bag
1 backpack
1 rucksack

Bedroom:
3 bed sheets
3 pillow cases
3 duvet covers
1 pillow
2 duvets, light and heavy
1 sleeping bag
2 blankets

Household:
1 box of washing powder [r]
1 container of bleach [r]
1 multi-surface cleaner [r]
2 cleaning cloths [r]
2 kitchen sponges/scrubbers [r]
1 toilet brush
1 container of washing-up liquid [r]
1 set of screwdrivers
1 drill
1 set of drillbits
1 hammer
1 box of assorted screws and fixings [r]
1 set of pliers
1 saw
1 hacksaw
1 spirit level
1 steel measuring tape

Kitchen:
1 frying pan
2 saucepans, large and small
2 casserole dishes
2 baking trays
1 fish slice
1 large metal spoon
1 sieve
2 sharp knives
1 chopping board
2 wooden spoons
1 mixing bowl
2 knives
2 forks
2 spoons
2 teaspoons
2 bowls
2 plates
2 mugs

Stationery:
1 a5 notebook [r]
1 a4 notepad [r]
1 pack of standard envelopes [r]
1 stapler
1 ruler
1 calculator
1 hole punch
2 ring binders
2 box files
1 ‘concertina’ file
1 roll of sticky tape [r]

Hobbies:
1 electronic drumkit
2 sets of drumsticks
1 guitar
1 guitar case
2 guitar straps
1 ‘backpacker’ guitar
1 case for the backpacker
2 sets of guitar strings [r]
1 mandolin
1 mandolin strap
1 set of mandolin strings [r]
1 tuning fork
1 capo
1 microphone & cables
1 microphone stand
1 small mixer
1 go board
1 set of go stones
1 travel go set
1 breadboard
1 set of electronics tools
1 multimeter
1 box of assorted electronics components
3 sets of knitting needles
6 balls of assorted wool

Books:
1 Learning Irish by Michael O’Siadhail
1 Irish-English Dictionary by O’Donaill
1 Greek New Testament (with dictionary) from Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
1 Reading Greek: Text by the Joint Association of Classical Teachers
1 Reading Greek: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises by the J.A.C.T.
1 Reading Greek: Independent Study Guide by the J.A.C.T.
1 Greek Anthology by the J.A.C.T.
1 folder of A396 (Continuing Classical Greek) course material, Open University
1 folder of A297 (Reading Classical Latin) course material, Open University
1 Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek
1 Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell & Scott
1 Reading Latin: Text by Jones & Sidwell
1 Reading Latin: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises by Jones & Sidwell
1 Reading Latin: Study Guide from the Open University
1 Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary
1 Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Gaureschi
1 Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go by Kageyama
1 Starting Electronics by Brindley
1 Iliad by Homer
1 Odyssey by Homer
1 Aeneid by Virgil
1 The Birds and Other Plays by Aristophanes
1 Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
1 Ireland by Michael Viney
1 Hareios poter kai he tou philosophou lithos by J. K. Rowling
1 Life of David Livingstone by Blaikie
1 Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone
1 Thucycides: History of the Pelopponesian War (Landmark Edition, R. Strassler)
1 Herodotus : Histories (Landmark Edition, R. Strassler)
1 Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian
1 The Persian Expedition (Anabasis) by Xenophon
1 Bible (New International Version, preferably with Apocrypha)
1 Clouds, Wasps and Peace by Aristophanes (Loeb Classical Library)
1 Greek Mathematical Works, Thales to Euclid (Loeb Classical Library)
1 Symposium by Plato (edited by C.J. Rowe)
1 Burning Wheel Fantasy Roleplaying System
1 Burning Wheel Character Burner
1 Burning Wheel Monster Burner
7 books of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia
3 volumes of J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings
1 The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles
1 Prometheus Bound and Other Plays by Aeschylus
2 parts of the AB Guide to Music Theory by Eric Taylor
1 On the Apostolic Preaching by Irenaeus of Lyons
1 Sharing Our Rhymes translated by my mum
1 Skerries Mills: A Poetry Collection by my mum
1 Egypt, Greece and Rome by Freeman
1 Introduction to Algebra by Cameron
1 Theory of Information and Coding by McEliece
2 volumes of Herodotus from Oxonii
1 Concrete Mathematics by Graham, Knuth, Patashnik
1 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson & Sussman
1 The Knitting Man(ual) by Spurkland
1 DADGAD Guitar Book by Sarah McQuaid
1 Managing 12 Volts by Harold Barre
1 Over To You by Roald Dahl
4 books of Biggles adventures by Capt. W.E. Johns
3 volumes of the Universal History of Numbers by Georges Ifrah
1 A Mathematician’s Apology by G.H. Hardy
5 books from the Kiseido Elementary Go series
1 Actual Air by David Berman
1 Wordgloss by Jim O’Donnell
1 India: A History by John Keay
1 Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra by Klein
1 Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
1 Amazon Journal of Roger Casement
2 History by Xenophon (Penguin Classics & Oxford Classical Texts)
1 Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien
1 Collins-Spurrell Welsh Dictionary
1 The Wasps/The Poet and the Women/The Frogs by Aristophanes
1 Medea and Other Plays by Euripides
1 The Hamilton Family and the making of Balbriggan by Stephanie Bourke
1 Perplexingly Easy by Wilkins
1 Cuchulain of Muirthemne by Lady Gregory
1 First and Last Things by H.G. Wells

Decorative Stuff:
1 painting “Sunrise Skerries” by Mary Dolan
3 framed photographs by my brother
1 pewter box from Hyderabad

zoomtard: Calvin’s Institutes

zoomtard — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:48:45 +0000

To commemorate his 500th anniversary, Princeton Theological Seminary are making it very easy for you to read Calvin’s Institutes by breaking it into short daily doses that you can read or listen to. Regardless of whether you are a believer or not, or a Calvinist or not, this is a masterpiece of our civilization and a work filled with ideas so potent, people could go to war over them. If only Calvin had thought going to war over these ideas wasn’t such a good idea, I might like him more. Anyway, go make a New Year Resolution that doesn’t have to do with your bank balance or your waist-size: Calvin 09.

Your Correspondent, Not a predeterminist, just thinks God establishes free will by reducing alternative possibilities to one

zoomtard: A Prayer For The New Year

zoomtard — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:04:10 +0000

Dear Heavenly Father up in the skies looking down on us. Restore to us our corporate security blanket and our unfailing trust in the markets. Make 2009 a year of MORE. Amen.

Your Correspondent, Trusts in GE the Father, GM the Son and Gazoprom the Spirit

zoomtard: A Year In Re-Cap

zoomtard — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:27:02 +0000

In 2008 I saw many many fine movies. But depressingly few of them were in the cinema because this year has been a bit of a let down. Still, the three best films I saw, as I see it, are Batman: The Dark Knight, There Will Be Blood, The Visitor and best of all by a mile Juno. Which has become one of my favourite films of all time. I walked on air for days after seeing it one beautiful spring Saturday morning. It made my city and my wife and my old Belle & Sebastian albums shine with a new light. We watched it again in a plush hotel in Portland and it filled me with even more delight and now it is simply burned into my brain as the most sonically, visually, mythically delightful film.

I really can’t explain why I like it more than the likes of Batman or There Will Be Blood. I see its annoyness. I can get why you think it is a lightweight bit of fluff. It’s not lovely and humble like the Visitor. But goshdarned it, from the moment she says, “I don’t know what kind of girl I am” I was hooked.

But I haven’t seen Rachel’s Getting Married, Let The Right One In, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, Doubt, Milk, Man On Wire, Frost/Nixon, Wrestler, Benjamin Button or Slumdog Millionaire. So early 2009 could be a bit of a bonus time.

The worst film of the year was Zak And Miri Make A Porno. It is a car crash of a film. Simultaneously cheap, boring and unfunny- it insults the intelligence of its audience. Porn is an industry where strangers take their clothes off under bright lights and in front of cameras and copulate. If you fail to make that funny, you should be banned from shooting film ever again.

The best book I read was A Community Called Atonement by Scot McKnight. It is notable for being brief (so rare in theology), easily understood, very winsome and a brilliant defence of theological diversity. Totally Biblical (in the best sense of the word), elegant as a system but easily applied to any real church context- this is the kind of theology I would like to produce some day maybe. It is a book that opens you up to the range of viewpoints that have existed on this important issue down through the years and prompts you to chew and reflect on the Scriptures in your own context. Atonement was a word created by Wycliff. It literally means at-one-ment. It is at the heart of the Gospel and this book should be at the centre of your library.

Book-wise, 2008 could be remembered as the Scot McKnight year in the way 2005 was the NT Wright year. I started tracking his books down and thought Embracing Grace was a magnificent piece of work too. Check out his blog, now moved but still great at Jesus Creed.

The best novel I read was one I read on St. Stephens’ Day: Wise Blood by Flan O’Connor.

The Road by McCarthy, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon, What is the What by Dave Eggers, Reason for God by Tim Keller and Surprised by Hope by Tom Wright also deserve many mentions. All very different and all very brilliant.

In 2008 I fell in love with The Hold Steady- a band that divides people like Juno. Except most people find my love of their barely-sung, melody free music incomprehensible. Jenny Lewis, Ben Folds and most importantly R.E.M. delivered sterling albums. Accelerate continues to be one of my favourite albums of all time. In a year when I thought and read and talked a lot about beauty and why the hell it exists, I think it is weirdly fitting that my favourite album ends with the chorus line, “Music provides the light you cannot resist“.

In 2008, the best place I visited was Canon Beach in Oregon. What a day. What a great holiday. 3 weeks with the wife-unit, my two best friends and visits to folk like Jaybercrow, the legendary Glathars and the totally unique Taylor. Plus, when it comes down to it, nothing attracts Clairebo and I to living in North America quite like baseball.

It was also the year I started studying theology. At a Catholic seminary, I became very well acquainted with defending my beliefs over coffee and putting into practice all that good stuff Scot McKnight imbues his books with. I heard Tim Keller in London, I met Miroslav Volf here in Maynooth and when NT Wright came to preach at the Kildare and Leighlin Cathedral in Carlow, Bishop Moriarty began the night by reading a whole entry of Zoomtard out to the packed pews come to hear the word on Paul. Now that was a night I won’t forget too soon. I had lunch with Craig Blomberg, I hung out with Marva Dawn and our church website won a national award. That was pretty sweet.

I had a fantastic week with good friends in Berlin, which was like discovering a true love that had been forgotten, I had a short trips to Brussels and Manchester with my boss to talk ministry, drink beer and visit museums and my wife and I celebrated our anniversary by staying in fancy hotels in England. I finally have gotten around to finishing my Masters, I won my first theological award and I even managed to have some good times at that stupid church that I work at. All in all, this year has kind of rocked.

Now if only in 2009 I can convince all my remaining friends to move to Maynooth and finally learn to swim, I think I’ll be able to call the whole thing a day…

Your Correspondent, Smugly pleased with himself in a way he can’t comprehend.

zoomtard: Aural Cacophonies From 2008

zoomtard — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:21:32 +0000

Every year a few friends each make a CD of the best music we first heard in the previous twelve months. Some of us take it very seriously, even making websites to advertise their efforts and then not letting us show people their fine work! Others just scrawl BEST OF on some blank CDs and sort winamp to show them the songs they listened to most.

I am somewhere in the middle. Here is msot of my effort for this year:

SeeqPod - Playable Search

There are two others songs that we have to go trawling around the web to find.
Ares by Bloc Party is the first (complimented by Betamaxnomates as “noise”) and a fantastic track by the Presbyterian minister Vito Aiuto and his wife Monique whose album Welcome To The Welcome Wagon rocked December around the Cardboard Mansion (before the Best-Of started its prototyping) which rounds off the CD called Skilled (early demo) Reference. Sadly, that Sufjan Stevens produced track is nowhere to be found online so you’ll have to just go buy the CD.

Your Correspondent, Once found a factual error on the internet

zoomtard: O Come O Come Emmanuel

zoomtard — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 01:56:18 +0000

And ransom captive Israel.

What Christmas means for me in my better moments is summed up by this song.

In my sermon tomorrow morning I use this clip. It’s what Christmas means to most of us most of the time.

Nollaig shona daoibh a chairde. I’m off into the wesht until further notice.

Your Correspondent, He pisses excellence

zoomtard: Rainforests and Gays

zoomtard — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:09:36 +0000

My disapproving ex-housemate suggested, inspired by the Pope’s latest crazy comments about homosexuality being an equally sized problem to climate change, that we design a wee app for the i-phone that measures your carbon footprint and compares it to your gay footprint. Simply by using the i-phone of course, you have stepped up your gayness. The Pope only uses Microsoft products. And it seems that as good as he is at writing theology, he sucks at engaging with the world in love.

It is probably a good sign that these comments, while condemning 2% of the world’s population for their sexual inclination, can be read as a signal that heterosexuality is finally, after 1800 years of ambiguity, a-ok in the eyes of the Vatican. Alternatively you could read the Bishop of Cloyne’s refusal to resign after the report on sexual abuse in his diocese on the same page in your newspapers as the reports on Benedict XVI’s comments about homosexuality and hang your head in despair. At Christmas, Christians continue to be idiots.

We are saved by faith; not work, effort nor merits, folks! Surely this is a case for rejoicing.

Instead of filling your head with sillyness, read this brilliant article. If G-A-Y are the three letters we have to remember if we are to save the world, 3-5-0 are the three digits. Climate change is not a myth. This Mother Jones piece expertly and safely and reliably explains the what and how of the response we should already have started to make. We have to start taxing carbon up the ying yang (with a likewise levy on male cosmetics of course!).

Your Correspondent, Trying to be the kind of Christian that doesn’t make you tired of Christians

zoomtard: An Eternal Light Without Candlestick Or Fuel

zoomtard — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:24:14 +0000

Relativism. Load of bollix, isn’t it? Absolutely.

But as Archbishop Rowan Williams writes today, “the 20th century built up quite a list of casualties around “principles”". In a deadly little article he considers how Barth offered us, especially relevant at Christmas, a way to acknowledge that there are no human truths that we are bound to without compromise but truth still exists. And truth still binds. Our principles, our absolutisms, our personal truths; they all get put into perspective by the Christ-child.

This makes it sound really abstract and chin-strokey. But let me make it more concrete. You can’t be sure for sure for sure that on one level the new Coldplay album sucked as much as you remembered it nor on another that Jesus is not who he says he is. Most people instinctively doubt the claims that me and my type make about him. But your doubt isn’t complete. There are moments when you catch a glimpse of the story reflected in a novel you are reading or in the way that a niece approaches your sister or whatever it is for you that causes a joyous little moment of epistemic doubt. Maybe there is more to this. Maybe this story is the reality.

See, this is what Williams means when he says Barth argued that Christmas gives us freedom to give away our “principles”. We all have a framework through which we construct our own personal reality. We have a lens through which we view the world. And with the Incarnation, Christians claim that God, if he is real he is the source of reality, is not going to offer a list of theses for his intervention. He doesn’t speak in the language of our principles. He comes as a baby and lives the life of a man. It can’t be absorbed into our systems. It can’t be broken down into essential principles. It is a story you have to get into. It’s a plot you have to let surround you. It’s a person who is other-worldly compelling and ground-breakingly relevant. It is not a theory that you subscribe to like gravity and so should not be approached the same way. It is not a system like free market capitalism that needs to advance and so should not be approached the same way. It’s the story of an unprincipled God and his intention to let us know we are more broken than we can admit and more loved than we can believe.

Williams is the poet and the theologian. Let him finish:

The God of the Christmas story (and the rest of the Gospels) doesn’t relate to us on the basis of any theory. but on the basis of unconditional love and welcome. That act of free love towards the entire human race changed things – even for those who didn’t and don’t share all the beliefs and doctrines of Christianity. And for those who do share those convictions, loving God and one another is a defiance of all programmes and principles designed to preserve only the wellbeing of people like us.

Your Correspondent, Only does things for me and people like me

zoomtard: Prime Minister Speaks On Train About Imaginary Friends

zoomtard — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 01:19:09 +0000

Tony Blair on how his faith affected his leadership. I don’t quite know what to make of this. Can anyone spot Miroslav Volf’s influence here?

Your Correspondent, Promises to restore theocracy if elected

zoomtard: Ministers and Quarterbacks

zoomtard — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:34:07 +0000

While driving home from a fancy restaurant with the lady behind Transfarmer last night we laughed about how totally without “Biblical basis” the practice of ordination is. I am currently in the process of hopefully being selected as an official candidate for ordination by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland but if all goes well and they choose me and I choose them and the world continues to spin, it will be eight years before Rev. Zoomtard is available to marry you and your lady friend. Think of all the things I could spend my time doing in the next five years instead of jumping through the hoops of four systematic theology modules and a 22 hour course in homiletics! (One module on preaching?!)

In the latest New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell produces one of his typically mind-bending observations: selecting champion quarter backs is as difficult as finding excellent teachers.

In commenting on this Jason Kottke sums up the article:

The upshot is that NFL quarterbacking and teaching are both jobs that need to be performed in order to find out if a certain person is good at them or not.

Which reminds me that selecting a quarter back, employing a teacher and ordaining a minister are all tasks of the same kind. I may be aceing my theology courses and gaining fluency in the biblical languages but the reason why people think it is a good idea that I pastor churches is that I am helping to pastor a church.

And why am I able to help our little church? Because in people like Keith McCrory I have mentors who skillfully, passionately and lovingly challenge, advise and encourage me. So Gladwell writes on his blog about how mentoring is the key to both quarterbacking and teaching (and ministering):

effective mentoring of a new teacher can make an enormous difference in that person’s ability to become a “star” teacher. But the problem… is that the process of mentorship is much too haphazard.

In fives years when my time in Maynooth comes to an end, I will have spent seven years as part of this little church plant’s leadership team. I will have to move to Belfast for a year to learn about Presbyterian church history and law. And then I along with the graduating class of whatever year that is will be then sent to our “assistantship”. Our on the job training. For many of my peers, this assignment will be their first permanent experience of what it is to lead a church. Forgive me for sounding arrogant, but maybe we have the process backwards. While the men and women involved in the process are no doubt very serious in the selection of candidates and passionately prayerful in their placement, many within my church would say that the procedure is not too disimilar to the hypothetical mania quoted in Gladwell’s article where:

It’s like training NFL quarterbacks by randomly sending them out to teams - some CFL teams, some Division III teams, some Division I College teams, some community teams, and a few to NFL teams.

One of the reasons I am for the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is that it is reformed and ever reforming. At the heart of our denomination is a sincere desire to meet the mission that God has called us to full on and a willingness to let go of methodologies or processes that block that. As I follow through on what shape my calling has I will remember this article and the many conversations with ministers that brought it’s content home to me and who knows; a refined and improved system may one day be the product?

Your Correspondent, Presents portraits in place of CV’s

zoomtard: Le Jour Ou Le Zoom Sarreta

zoomtard — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:19:37 +0000

It would have helped for Babette to post her excellent review of the latest Jennifer Connolly as an unfeasibly beautiful scientist-movie before me and Clairebo and Betamaxnomates (fresh from Japanainia) a few hours earlier. Then I would have been spared the embarrasment of having to lodge popcorn kernels in my sleeping friends ears as he slumbered many times during the excercise in tedious environmental propaganda that is the Day The Earth Stood Still. Stick to the 1950’s version on a Saturday afternoon.

Luckily, Klaatu was assessing human beings based on their carbon footprint. If he had assessed us based on our ability to butcher great works of art then Christina Aguilera performing the 8th Century chant Oh Holy Night in the White House would pretty much have condemned us to be eaten by tiny little metal locusts (how Biblical!).

Fall on your knees! This year, Christmas is dirrty baby!

In The Day The Earth Stood Still, the incomprehensibly annoying little boy has a Go Team! poster on his wall. No 9 year old boys, even Will Smith’s 9 year old boy has a Go Team! poster on their wall. Well, maybe the 9 year old boys that Betamaxnomates teaches in Japanainia do but no normal children. It was a very annoying detail that turned out be to be very useful because dwelling on its stupidity gave me something to do as Klaatu took a long time to realise that paternal love for children is something really really really special, especially if it is inter-racial.

By the way, when an action movie feels a need to introduce spurious science speak to wow you into cognitive submission, you know you are in “the Core-zone”. In the absence of a plot, these jokers are going to rest on your technical inferiority complex. “3 times 10 to the 7 metres a second” is a fancy way of saying 100 million kilometres an hour. They probably should have left it out or explained it instead of mentioning that datum three times in about 3 times 10 to the minus 7 minutes.

Did I mention Jennifer Connolly is in it?

Your Correspondent, Never got over his Labyrinth inspired love of Jennifer Connolly

zoomtard: The Imago Dei By The Via Negativa

zoomtard — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:09:42 +0000

It is always reassuring when your hunches turn out to be true. And one of the cool things that has happened during the last 12 weeks of college is that I have been reassurred again and again that theology must always be a positive endeavour.

Defensive theology barely deserves the name theology at all and all around the church and the world, whether you consider the dispensationalist desire to escape this world or the creation scientist desire to deny this world or the Irish preoccupation with marking who is in the church and excluding all others, when your motivation is self-protection then the outcome will be an abomination that ruins peoples lives.

But! Idiot child here has learned that there is something fruitful in the development of theology from negative precepts. The learned ones call it the via negativa and some others call it the apophatic tradition but why should you be worried about such technical details. All you need to do is watch the following Loius Theroux clip from his documentary investigating crime in Philadelphia.

The prostitute that we meet four minutes in who is afraid to go home because her sugar daddy will beat her, who steals $240 a day to pay for her habit, she is both magnetic and repulsive. That such things have been done to people, that the image of her Creator that she bears would be beaten and her spirit trampled on disgusts us. But in our reaction to people like her who are so tormented we see without a shadow of a doubt that there is a God. What has happened to her is wrong. Not because of cultural values and not because we have some economic or genetic interest in her well being. It is wrong because it offends what it is to be human. And when we want to speak of what it is to be human, we are forced to do business with the source of our significance.

Maybe it was that there was more sudafed running through my veins than blood when I saw this last night but it brough tears to my eyes and prayers to my lips. Who can testify to the pain that this woman has been through; the alienation, the isolation, the unbearable burden of sin?

Your Correspondent, Has not lied with this speech

zoomtard: A Mission Statement Of Sorts

zoomtard — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:28:31 +0000

“The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principles for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self-sacrificing love in its rituals and discipline. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message, but to be the message.”

- Stanley Hauerwas

Your Correspondent, Became a prostitute to pay for flute lessons

zoomtard: I Confess. I’m A Pervert!

zoomtard — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:27:29 +0000

From the Irish Times letters page:

Madam, - Hugo Brady Brown (Letters, December 12th) describes the word “pervert” as a “harsh term” for a Catholic who became a Protestant. I don’t think it was ever intended as such.

The term comes from the Latin verb pervetere, which means to turn away.

Therefore, a pervert is simply “one who has turned away” - in this context one who has turned away from the Catholic faith. It is the antonym of “convert”, which in this context means one who has become a Catholic, or turned to the Catholic faith.

It leads me to consider what word we ought to use Roman Catholics who turned away from the ecumenical period of the first centuries of Christianity when they asserted their “primacy”. Degenerates?

Your Correspondent, Wants to stoke the fires of true Catholicity

No related posts.

zoomtard: Raise Your Flags

zoomtard — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:01:38 +0000

At 11.15 on December 5th 1921, the delegation led by Michael Collins decided to recommend the Treaty as proposed by the British to Dáil Éireann. They declared independence, so to speak.

Your Correspondent, is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill.

No related posts.

zoomtard: Things I Believe 7

zoomtard — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:03:46 +0000

The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable.

Your Correspondent, The world is in his whiskey glass.

No related posts.

zoomtard: Inspired By Friends

zoomtard — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:32:20 +0000

Don’t complain because even this post is better than nothing. Contrary to what other people think, prayer works.

I heard a scientist say that once. I know that’s the only way we’ll ever consider such embarrassing ideas true.

How To Properly Grasp Prayer

Your Correspondent, Is in for a rough night

Zoomtard Financial Consultants I ain’t no big city lawyer but I reckon it...

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zoomtard: For Some Reason…

zoomtard — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:38:05 +0000

… I haven’t been able to convince my church to do the Advent Conspiracy. Maybe I should just get all evangelical and start a new splinter church? Or maybe I will content myself to keep beating this drum that has no skin.

Your Correspondent, Thinks the Gospel is primarily subversive

No related posts.

zoomtard: Mechanicalize Something Idiosyncratic

zoomtard — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:24:53 +0000

After an astoundingly difficult week where my brain actually stopped working for a few scary hours on Monday morning, I am now finishing off my second essay of the day and feeling good again. Oh yeah. I can hear the Spirit whispering, “If you live by your academic performance you die by your academic performance”. And I respond by saying, “Spirit, I don’t want to have to blaspheme you! Sssh!”

One of the many moments when I realised how mighty damn cool my friend Chrissy is was sitting in an airport terminal one day when she quoted Brian Eno. Maybe one of these days it will be compulsary to appreciate Brian Eno before you work for a church. Maybe.

Also, while we’re talking Maybes, maybe one of these someone will come good and get me an Oblique Strategies set for my birthday. Cough cough.

Anyway, Eno has this to say:

Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness. And then there are what I would call “civilizational benefits.” When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings — to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

Maybe I should stop citing that old C.S. Lewis line about worship music being fifth rate poetry set to sixth rate music?

In college today I saw classmates pass notes like they were 15 and I didn’t want to be in on that note passing. I caught myself being Mature Student and rolling my eyes at their paper-based flirting. We’re trying to learn about the liturgical significance of baptism here, ya know? Also, a college employee used a very loud petrol driven leaf blower all around the library. That’s hardly best practice is it? Can’t even mustre mediocre practice in fact. Finally, our college canteen went on fire. No more bouncy chips. An era dies and a generation cries.

I should really submit some poetry to the college newspaper.

Your Correspondent, Not afraid of things because they’re easy to do

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zoomtard: Bailout Bargains

zoomtard — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:15:27 +0000

There probably isn’t enough discussion being had about “free markets” in the midst of this collapse we’re suffering through. Understanding the scale of the problems that we are in is beyond the grasp of most of us but suffice to say, the USA is on the hook for $24000 for every citizen. Or in other words, the bailout is more expensive than:

Put together

Wendell Berry had a great article in Harpers a few months ago about the assumption of the limitless that drives our economy. I am super-sceptical of aspects of Berry’s thought and a bit bored by his novels but there is surely no more under-rated intellectual at work anywhere in Christianity today.

Our true religion is a sort of autistic industrialism.

For those of us convinced that climate change and the energy crisis are not myths created to scare us, Berry poses some seriously thought provoking questions about what can even be possible in terms of “solutions”.

Today, Iceland is like a nightmare parable that Berry would have dreamed up if he had been a science fiction writer.

Your Correspondent, But then again, Berry as a science fiction writer is like a fantasy plot in and of itself

New Berry Fiction For those of you who are fans of Wendell Berry,...

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