I know what a plugin is.

A few weeks ago I installed the ESV Bible Firefox Plugin. Now I can search through the ESV Bible on my laptop. It's pretty sweet.

I could, but I won't.

I really don't need another grammar soap box, but this one does tempt me.

In eighth grade, I took a rhetoric classes. I don't remember a whole lot of what I learned, but I do remember learning about different fallacies, in particular, the fallacy of begging the question, explained above.

For six years, I've wondered why people use the phrase "it begs the question" to mean "it raises the question", and if they are right to do so. Today I decided to look it up and discovered this very funny website devoted to the defending the proper use of the phrase. The common use of the phrase is incorrect. The founders of the website propound addressing the misuse in a loving, discrete way, such as handing the offender this little "beg the question" card. I quote, "Just remember: these cards are meant to discreetly inform them of BTQ abuse, but they are no substitute for candor and respect."

Why would anyone say grammar snobs are great, big meanies?

A Tribute to Robert Burns

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us. It wad frae money a blunder free us, And foolish notion.

I mostly know of the poet Burns because Jeeves likes to quote him. Today is his 250th birthday, so I scanned a website devoted to his poetry and picked out the familiar ones, and a few with funny titles that caught my eye. Good luck with the old Scottish dialect.

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!


Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint stowp!
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o'kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.

And there's a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.


Address To A Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckles as wither'd rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro' blody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned,
Like taps o' trissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis!


Address To The Toothache

My curse upon your venom'd stang,
That shoots my tortur'd gums alang,
An' thro' my lug gies mony a twang,
Wi' gnawing vengeance,
Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang,
Like racking engines!

When fevers burn, or argues freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or colics squeezes,
Our neibor's sympathy can ease us,
Wi' pitying moan;
But thee-thou hell o' a' diseases-
Aye mocks our groan.

Adown my beard the slavers trickle
I throw the wee stools o'er the mickle,
While round the fire the giglets keckle,
To see me loup,
While, raving mad, I wish a heckle
Were in their doup!

In a' the numerous human dools,
Ill hairsts, daft bargains, cutty stools,
Or worthy frien's rak'd i' the mools, -
Sad sight to see!
The tricks o' knaves, or fash o'fools,
Thou bear'st the gree!

Where'er that place be priests ca' hell,
Where a' the tones o' misery yell,
An' ranked plagues their numbers tell,
In dreadfu' raw,
Thou, Toothache, surely bear'st the bell,
Amang them a'!

O thou grim, mischief-making chiel,
That gars the notes o' discord squeel,
Till daft mankind aft dance a reel
In gore, a shoe-thick,
Gie a' the faes o' Scotland's weal
A townmond's toothache!

Even though I'm not a Luddite.

I have been back in Wheaton for two full weeks. I don't have a cell phone and during this time I haven't even had use of the dorm phone to make off campus calls. It's broken. I can't make calls, and I can't receive calls, but the answering machine still works. This is odd, and it's particularly odd to be in the room and suddenly hear the voice of someone recording a message on the machine.

As best as I can recall, I borrowed a cell phone to make a few calls my first day here and to call my parents last Saturday. I borrowed Robin's phone to make one short call on another occasion and used the phone in the other dorm room to make two calls on campus one evening . That's all. I haven't felt unusually disadvantaged. In fact, I can only think of one instance when I really wished I had a cell phone.

But all day long I see students talking on the phone, texting, checking for messages. What do they have that I don't have? And how important is it, really?

(One practical answer is "someone to have dinner with." It's Friday night, and I ate alone. But, as I've said, I like to eat alone.)

I wonder what Wheaton would be like if everyone turned their phone off for a week.

A Tribute to John Donne

Today is John Donne's birthday. He would be 437. Actually, wikipedia tells me that we don't know exactly when he was born, but I'd rather believe that it was today and use the opportunity to post some favorite poems. Rereading these makes me excited to take a seventeenth century lit class here at Wheaton.

Here's a couple from his youth, when he was Jack Donne, if you will.

A VALEDICTION OF WEEPING

LET me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth.
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee ;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more ;
When a tear falls, that thou fall'st which it bore ;
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore.

On a round ball
A workman, that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, all.
So doth each tear,
Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mix'd with mine do overflow
This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolvèd so.

O ! more than moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere ;
Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear
To teach the sea, what it may do too soon ;
Let not the wind
Example find
To do me more harm than it purposeth :
Since thou and I sigh one another's breath,
Whoe'er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other's death.


A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.


THE SUN RISING

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.


And here are a few from his later years. They are less erotic than many of his 'Jack Donne' poems, though certainly not temperate.

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER

I.
WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

II.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

III.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ;
And having done that, Thou hast done ;
I fear no more.

And the rest are from Holy Sonnets:

VI.

This is my play's last scene ; here heavens appoint
My pilgrimage's last mile ; and my race
Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace ;
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point ;
And gluttonous Death will instantly unjoint
My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space ;
But my ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose fear already shakes my every joint.
Then, as my soul to heaven her first seat takes flight,
And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,
So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
To where they're bred and would press me to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.


VII.


At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ;
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ;
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent, for that's as good
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.


X.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.


XIV.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

A holiday

On Monday classes were canceled in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Lisa, Robin, Susannah, and I took the train into Chicago to ice skate in Grant Park. Skating is free if you have your own skates, and I had bought a pair of skates for three dollars at Good Will a couple months before. They were probably worth almost as much as I paid for them, but it was funny anyway.

My feet didn't hurt as much as my left knee does now. I had my only fall of the day before actually leaving Wheaton. I was hurrying down the sloping hallway in the lower Beamer Center, as I am wont to do. One foot slipped on the tile while the other was on the carpet, and I ended up on my back with my left leg bent at the knee and almost doubled up behind me while my right leg was splayed in the opposite direction. It hurt. Robin, who figure skated for five years, said this position is known as the stag jump. It just would have been better if I had been perpendicular to the ground, above ice.

We thought the trains would be running on the holiday schedule, but they weren't so we ended up reading in the train station for an hour. I was thoroughly unable to concentrate on reading after a blind man with a beautiful yellow lab guide dog walked in. I introduced myself, and we chatted about the Seeing Eye and puppy raising. Otter, three years old, is his first guide dog, and they are doing wonderfully together.

It was Lisa's first time skating since she was nine.

Last time I skated outside was on a lagoon in Alaska with mountains on the horizon. This was a wee bit different, but I loved it.

It was such a beautiful, clear day. Perfect for skating outside.

Even though Robin was out of practice, she was able to impress me with some spins and jumps and such.

Lisa and me.

We had coffee and did some more homework at an Intelligensia coffee shop and then took the train back in time for tea.

Another highlight of the day was seeing a sign on the bathroom stall door that read, "Caution - beware stolen purses!" I wonder about this. Would they strangle me?

I never knew this.

Testament means covenant. I never knew this. It makes so much sense.

This covenant, also referred to as a testament (hence, New Testament), promises salvation through the forgiveness of sins and all related blessings in this life and the next; but it also includes obligations for the recipients of the covenant to demonstrate their love and devotion to their covenant Lord. It is this union with God, this covenant that is sealed and secure through the sacrifice of Christ, that is at the heart of Christian worship.

This quote comes from Allen P. Ross's Recalling the Hope of Glory - Biblical Worship from the Garden to the New Creation. I'm reading it for my theology of worship class. If the introduction and the first two chapters are any indication, it is a fabulous book.

I love learning things. It makes me excited.

Let trumpets sound!

I just got back from the service for installation of Dr. Josh Moody as senior pastor of College Church. It was a joyous occasion! The sanctuary was so packed out with people that my friend Donna and I were ushered to the very front row, just a few feet from Dr D.A. Carson who preached. It sent chills down my spine to hear what must have been more than a thousand Christians praising God through song. We sang The Church's One Foundation (which has been one of my favorites for several years), Great is Thy Faithfulness, and a hymn by Timothy Dudley-Smith that has become a new favorite. It's glorious.


Rejoice in God! Let trumpets sound
In witness to the world around
His faithfulness proclaim;
Who led His people by the hand
And brought them to their promised land
That all on earth should understand
The greatness of his Name.

Rejoice in God, the God of grace,
And come with thanks before His face
For all His tender care;
Whose mercy meets us in our need,
Whose word of life is life indeed,
On whom, in Christ, our spirits feed,
Who loves to answer prayer.

Rejoice in God whose only Son
A fallen world's salvation won
And broke the sinner's chain.
He came in love to seek and save
When for us all His life he gave,
And then from cross and death and grave
Triumphant rose again.

Rejoice in God, and for Him build
A living temple, Spirit filled,
Of everlasting worth;
A church united, true and strong,
Where all who love the Lord belong,
And find in Him their strength and song,
The joy of all the earth.

Rejoice in God! Your voices raise
In honour, blessing, love and praise
To His eternal throne;
That ev'ry heart, with one accord,
And ev'ry tongue may tell abroad
The loving kindness of the Lord,
and make His glory known.

I know I'm odd.

Sometimes during the summer or when I'm home for break, people ask me what there is to do at Wheaton for fun on weekends. I enjoy my time at Wheaton, but I always have a hard time knowing what to say.

This Friday night I went to a seminar at church on the evangelical church, particularly Calvinism and the emerging church. That was followed by a couple hours with some friends talking and watching some youtube videos over tea. Saturday morning I attended the second half of the seminar, this time on African American churches, Pentecostalism, mega-churches, and Anglicanism in America. After lunch I watched part of a documentary on China. In the evening I went to the opera. Wheaton's Opera Music Theater put on Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience. One of my friends had a lead role.

Today I've been in church for a many hours already and more this afternoon for Josh Moody's installation service.

It's been a nice weekend. I just think this isn't what other people enjoy. Or what students do at other colleges.

In chapel?

Today I was told in chapel that in hard times God raises up a deliverer like Moses. He raised up Martin Luther King Junior and now He has given us Barack Obama.

Comment.

Funday Monday

Funday Monday is a tradition that started on my birthday, except I think it didn't happen again til this week. Every week we'll try to do a little, fun, relaxing, even silly thing, together as a suite (with honorary suite members) for a short while on Monday afternoon. This week we drank tea, wore silly hats, played with playdoh, and talked of weighty matters.

Robin

Erin

Rachel

Erin, with dinosaur

This is why I prefer to be behind the camera.

God loveth adverbs

I love this quote that Dr. Lundin shared in class yesterday:

"The homeliest service that we doe in an honest calling, though it be but to plow, or digge, if done in obedience . . . is crowned with an ample reward; whereas the best workes for their kinde . . . if without respect of God's injunction and glory, are loaded with curses. God loveth adverbs; and cares not how good, but how well." - Joseph Hall

The bad and the good

I've been back from my last class just long enough to make myself a pot of tea and spread a few crackers with nutella. From my position, sitting cross-legged on the floor, I can see the bright blue sky and the sunlight glinting off the snow on the roof of the other wing of Fischer dorm. It looks like a beautiful day for an afternoon walk, but it is not. Emphatically, it is not. Outside it is -8 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill of -28. It makes your eyes stream, your face burn, and your forehead ache. I've never experienced such bitter cold before.

Schools in the township of Wheaton closed today, but I love my classes so much this semester that I'm really glad classes continued as usual on Wheaton's campus. I'm taking Literature of the Bible with Dr. Ryken, Biblical Theology of Worship with Dr. Block, Modern European Lit with Dr. Lundin, and New Testament with Dr. Perrin, along with organ lessons. My professors are very different from each other and all of them exceptional. However, I haven't got time to extol my classes any more because Dr. Lundin assigned 190 pages of Madame Bovary to read by tomorrow, and I'm only a quarter through.

On reading

A blog I follow had a link to these three posts on reading which I found thought provoking. I've never read like the author of this blog reads. Perhaps I should.

Capturing Reading Time

Read with a Pen in Hand

Read with a Purpose in Mind

The Miners got a television?!

By February 17 all US television will be digital not analog. This means that my parent's television (pictured above), which is older than I am, will be completely obsolete. No longer will I play with rabbit ears, attempting to get reception decent enough to watch tennis. It used to be hard to figure out which fuzzy line was actually a line on the court, which moving speck was the ball. No more. No more will I, with all the force I can exert with my thumb, silence the commercials by turning the volume down since the mute button broke. No more will I wrestle with the cart that held the television while it housed itself under a shelf in the pantry when not in use. (Once, traumatically, it fell off the cart when I tried to get it over the rug.) Never again will I peer behind the television and with the aid of an electric window candle fiddle with cables, attempting to get the sound or picture to work on a movie or dvd. And my parents will no longer be able to complain about how "they always make movies so dark these days. You can't see anything!"

The day after Christmas, Radu took my dad out to look at new televisions. My parents purchased a television, with a wider screen than the last one. I never thought I'd see the day. The new television won't permanently pollute the living room, though. When not in use, it will slip behind the piano on a different cart that my father is now making. I find its dark, looming presence in the living room mildly unsettling. I'll be glad when it fits behind the piano.

I've never been one for watching tv much. There is too much that is vapid and inane. I don't like the way my eyes are drawn to the screen, or the way the flickering images reflect on the wall across from it. On the rare occasions that my mother will turn on the television to flip channels and see if there's anything good on I always feel uneasy, like something is wrong and I can't pinpoint what. I like the odd good program or show, but I suppose I can be grateful that I don't easily fall prey to that medium's "evil wiles" of which I sometimes hear spoken!

Soon the old television will be carried to the curb, picked up, and taken wherever they take old televisions. Some day I'll get to push the new tv cart onto the rug and watch a few hours of tennis or a movie on a clear, wide screen. Such opulence!

Nephews again

William's grandpa was especially good at keeping him happy or asleep in spite of his misery from teething.

I take pictures of the boys and then can't resist posting them.