Tuesday, May 31, 2005
I wonder
The cave of making - Postscript
(W. H. Auden)
Time has taught you
how much inspiration
your vices brought you,
what imagination
can owe temptation
yielded to,
that many a fine
expressive line
would not have existed,
had you resisted:
as a poet, you
know this is true,
and though in Kirk
you sometimes pray
to feel contrite,
it doesn’t work.
Felix culpa, you say:
perhaps you’re right.
You hope, yes,
your books will excuse you,
save you from hell:
nevertheless,
without looking sad,
without in any way
seeming to blame
(He doesn’t need to,
knowing well
what a lover of art
like yourself pays heed to),
God may reduce you
on Judgement Day
to tears of shame,
reciting by heart
the poems you would
have written, had
your life been good.
Monday, May 23, 2005
You Could Die Today
Just a thought. Not being morbid. Just the truth, just a tiny little factoid that all of us acknowledge but never truly believe.
Believe it today.
Today, carry the thought with you like a little piece of string tied around your finger. When you see the people you love. When you see the people you despise, or who despise you. When you look up at a blue sky, and feel the warm wind on your face. When the tiny, insignificant things in this life try to claim you, to choke you. When you are tempted to do evil, or given the opportunity to do good, remember that before this day is done you may stand before your Creator, your Saviour.
They say that, for terminal patients and the like, there is something in the knowledge that you are dying, in facing death, that somehow brings life into focus.
Well, we are all dying, every one of us. Terminal cases from the moment we were born. Make your days count. Every one of them. Live like you are dying.
Because you are.
Believe it today.
Today, carry the thought with you like a little piece of string tied around your finger. When you see the people you love. When you see the people you despise, or who despise you. When you look up at a blue sky, and feel the warm wind on your face. When the tiny, insignificant things in this life try to claim you, to choke you. When you are tempted to do evil, or given the opportunity to do good, remember that before this day is done you may stand before your Creator, your Saviour.
They say that, for terminal patients and the like, there is something in the knowledge that you are dying, in facing death, that somehow brings life into focus.
Well, we are all dying, every one of us. Terminal cases from the moment we were born. Make your days count. Every one of them. Live like you are dying.
Because you are.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Idle musings
Today I heard a minister say that what God desires more than anything else is our worship. I disagree. I think what God desires more than anything else, in this life, is our *obedience*. Jesus Himself said "If you love me, keep my commandments." And again "To obey is better than sacrifice." The picture we see over and over again is of God desperately trying to get us to listen to Him, to heed His voice, and do what He asks--not because *He* needs us to, or a simple desire to exercise unquestioned authority, but because He knows it is what is best for us, if we would only just listen, and trust Him.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Tick....Tick....Tick....
It's night time. The rest of my family has gone off to bed, and I sit, alone, in the living room, listening to the steady rhythm of so many assorted clocks. I have been home from Oxford for one month.
Graduation lies behind me by some ten days now, that blessed ceremony where your entire college education in distilled to an ill-fitting cap, a thin nylon gown, some honours cords if you are lucky, and a few brief seconds on stage, with your name echoing for all to hear. I suppose it's a bit like the morning of your birthday, when people ask you if you feel any older. Of course you don't. As far as your mind and bosy are concerned, only a single day has passed since the last. The same is true here: how can a single day--or rather a single ceremony on a single day, virtually the same year after year--possibly hope to do any justice to the previous years of pain, grief, love, pride, hope, growth, learning, of life? It can't, of course. But we feel like we ought to do something. And so we march.
****Secret Insider Information****
Just between us, I think it is more for the parents and relatives than the graduates. A bit like a wedding, I suppose. If not for the expectations of their family and friends, how many frazzled couples--sick of menus and registries and seating arrrangements and colour schemes and-- would pitch the big ceremony and reception altogether and climb into the back of a Vegas bound Buick? But there really is no "elopement option" for university. But then, it is probably the least we can do to repay the support so many of us have been given, for a few shining moments of pride, and pictures taken outside in the sun under that particularly fine tree outside the auditorium. I know I owe my family so much more than that.
****End Secret....oh, heck, I just feel obligated to put these in now...****
So that's it, then. We finally reach the top of the mountain, after our arduous climb, and we realize that it isn't quite so high as it seemed from the bottom, and the view isn't as great as we would have hoped. What's more, now that we've crested the hill (for hill it is), we see that it is only one high point among many on the path stretching out before us. But go ahead. Enjoy the peak. Stare at the clouds. Throw rocks at the birds. Spit off the edge. Lie down for a nap. Take as long as you like. But know that eventually you will have to stretch, cinch up your pack, and keep moving.
***And So to Summarize the Current State of Things, in a Fashion which will no doubt Degenerate into a List of Random Facts (or STCSOTIAFWWNDDIALORF-ing, as it is known)***
I don't quite know what to do with myself these days. To all who were wondering, I passed my biology CLEP test (which is why I graduated on time), proving that no matter what you might think, you *can* cram two semester of biology into a (little less than a) week of studying, with the proper motivation.
Willows went well, and I gave the best Guildenstern my limited time and rehearsals would allow...
...though my last acting experience at Cornerstone was actually a speech from Henry V that I did at the senior baccalaureat. St. Crispin's Day, it was. Not my best, not my worst--probably appropriate.
Oh, speaking of theatre...At the KTG Awards banquet
***Public Service Announcement***
For the Oxonians in the audience: Kappa Theta Gamma (KTG, see?) is the Cornerstone theatre society. At the end of the season, they have an awards banquet, where they give out awards for best actor, actress, so forth.
Oh, and...don't eat lead....And...if the bomb falls, remember duck and cover.
***End Public Service Announcement***
I was given the Outstanding Achievement in Theatre award--sort of like the "lifetime achievement award" to a graduating senior...only not for a lifetime...just for the four years...or however long it took you to finish. I was told my speech was very good (Amber cried), though I don't think it was recorded in any way, and I only remember pieces. (Ok, I could probably remember most of it, I just don't feel like it.)
I think what I said that night is indicative of much of the past four years. I think I end much the way I started, "as someone who feels everyone else is a lot further along than he is...who's winging it, and hoping no one will notice."
I still have my internship to start and finish this summer, with Dr. Carroll and Dr. Mohrmann at the Center for the Study of Antiquity (or CSA...but you probably could have figured that one out). And there is that Psychology CLEP as well. But Doc is in Greece right now, and Mohrmann is tied up for a few weeks, and the test can be done any time, so...
But beyond those things there is nothing. The rest of the summer is a light grey fog, beyond the summer is an impenetrable black fog. My plan (and we all know how you make God laugh) is to spend some of the next year working and saving up money for Grad school. The rest of the time I will be figuring out exactly what I want to study and where I want to study it. I still have intellectual ADD, but decisions are rapidly growing closer, accompanied by the big angry enforcer of Real Life.
I've told a few people that at, at the moment, I don't so much feel like I am standing at a crossroads, but rather in a big open field, where it doesn't matter which way I go; and the mind can only take so much flat, rolling wheat. It's as if, in Oxford I was moving in a particular direction. Now all the that momentum has been spent, but I haven't yet started moving in another direction. Inertia has overcome me, and until I overcome it, I am motionless, in stasis. The thermodynamics of the spirit.
The next year is my time, time to be spent in my little basement room reading, writing, studying, and on my knees in prayer. It is borrowed time, time that probably should have been spent already. I mused once, when I had first moved in several weeks ago, that much of the rest of my life would be determined by my time in that little room. Perhaps that is too grandiose, but I think there is a ring of truth in it.
My room is underground. Things are put in the ground after they die. Things are put in the ground before being raised to a new life. Which will I be?
I have noticed that when I take too long between entries, when I finally do write I have too many things I want to say, and they only succeed in all charging at each other, bonking heads, and falling over unconscious. Because of that, I will bring this to a merciful close. Sanity and coherence to follow, hopefully.
God grant you peace,
Brian
Graduation lies behind me by some ten days now, that blessed ceremony where your entire college education in distilled to an ill-fitting cap, a thin nylon gown, some honours cords if you are lucky, and a few brief seconds on stage, with your name echoing for all to hear. I suppose it's a bit like the morning of your birthday, when people ask you if you feel any older. Of course you don't. As far as your mind and bosy are concerned, only a single day has passed since the last. The same is true here: how can a single day--or rather a single ceremony on a single day, virtually the same year after year--possibly hope to do any justice to the previous years of pain, grief, love, pride, hope, growth, learning, of life? It can't, of course. But we feel like we ought to do something. And so we march.
****Secret Insider Information****
Just between us, I think it is more for the parents and relatives than the graduates. A bit like a wedding, I suppose. If not for the expectations of their family and friends, how many frazzled couples--sick of menus and registries and seating arrrangements and colour schemes and-- would pitch the big ceremony and reception altogether and climb into the back of a Vegas bound Buick? But there really is no "elopement option" for university. But then, it is probably the least we can do to repay the support so many of us have been given, for a few shining moments of pride, and pictures taken outside in the sun under that particularly fine tree outside the auditorium. I know I owe my family so much more than that.
****End Secret....oh, heck, I just feel obligated to put these in now...****
So that's it, then. We finally reach the top of the mountain, after our arduous climb, and we realize that it isn't quite so high as it seemed from the bottom, and the view isn't as great as we would have hoped. What's more, now that we've crested the hill (for hill it is), we see that it is only one high point among many on the path stretching out before us. But go ahead. Enjoy the peak. Stare at the clouds. Throw rocks at the birds. Spit off the edge. Lie down for a nap. Take as long as you like. But know that eventually you will have to stretch, cinch up your pack, and keep moving.
***And So to Summarize the Current State of Things, in a Fashion which will no doubt Degenerate into a List of Random Facts (or STCSOTIAFWWNDDIALORF-ing, as it is known)***
I don't quite know what to do with myself these days. To all who were wondering, I passed my biology CLEP test (which is why I graduated on time), proving that no matter what you might think, you *can* cram two semester of biology into a (little less than a) week of studying, with the proper motivation.
Willows went well, and I gave the best Guildenstern my limited time and rehearsals would allow...
...though my last acting experience at Cornerstone was actually a speech from Henry V that I did at the senior baccalaureat. St. Crispin's Day, it was. Not my best, not my worst--probably appropriate.
Oh, speaking of theatre...At the KTG Awards banquet
***Public Service Announcement***
For the Oxonians in the audience: Kappa Theta Gamma (KTG, see?) is the Cornerstone theatre society. At the end of the season, they have an awards banquet, where they give out awards for best actor, actress, so forth.
Oh, and...don't eat lead....And...if the bomb falls, remember duck and cover.
***End Public Service Announcement***
I was given the Outstanding Achievement in Theatre award--sort of like the "lifetime achievement award" to a graduating senior...only not for a lifetime...just for the four years...or however long it took you to finish. I was told my speech was very good (Amber cried), though I don't think it was recorded in any way, and I only remember pieces. (Ok, I could probably remember most of it, I just don't feel like it.)
I think what I said that night is indicative of much of the past four years. I think I end much the way I started, "as someone who feels everyone else is a lot further along than he is...who's winging it, and hoping no one will notice."
I still have my internship to start and finish this summer, with Dr. Carroll and Dr. Mohrmann at the Center for the Study of Antiquity (or CSA...but you probably could have figured that one out). And there is that Psychology CLEP as well. But Doc is in Greece right now, and Mohrmann is tied up for a few weeks, and the test can be done any time, so...
But beyond those things there is nothing. The rest of the summer is a light grey fog, beyond the summer is an impenetrable black fog. My plan (and we all know how you make God laugh) is to spend some of the next year working and saving up money for Grad school. The rest of the time I will be figuring out exactly what I want to study and where I want to study it. I still have intellectual ADD, but decisions are rapidly growing closer, accompanied by the big angry enforcer of Real Life.
I've told a few people that at, at the moment, I don't so much feel like I am standing at a crossroads, but rather in a big open field, where it doesn't matter which way I go; and the mind can only take so much flat, rolling wheat. It's as if, in Oxford I was moving in a particular direction. Now all the that momentum has been spent, but I haven't yet started moving in another direction. Inertia has overcome me, and until I overcome it, I am motionless, in stasis. The thermodynamics of the spirit.
The next year is my time, time to be spent in my little basement room reading, writing, studying, and on my knees in prayer. It is borrowed time, time that probably should have been spent already. I mused once, when I had first moved in several weeks ago, that much of the rest of my life would be determined by my time in that little room. Perhaps that is too grandiose, but I think there is a ring of truth in it.
My room is underground. Things are put in the ground after they die. Things are put in the ground before being raised to a new life. Which will I be?
I have noticed that when I take too long between entries, when I finally do write I have too many things I want to say, and they only succeed in all charging at each other, bonking heads, and falling over unconscious. Because of that, I will bring this to a merciful close. Sanity and coherence to follow, hopefully.
God grant you peace,
Brian
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