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November 26, 2005
Bob Dylan Chronicles
I have been reading Dylan's autobiography. I really liked his account of the early days in Greenwich Village, and although his transition into stardom is candid and articulate, his early years are better. The story of a poor artist living hand-to-mouth, attempting to express changing times, who is romantic and dreamy and is mystified by everyone he meets makes a far better story than his existence as a "legend" who already was. He seems to really struggle with fame-angst and has-been fears in the later pages of the book and the only thing keeping you on the edge of your seat is the hope for his dreams to resuscitate.
I hung out in some of the same places Dylan did, like little MacDougal Street off of Bleecker in the village. He describes his romantic friends, the way they dressed in their existential confusion, his experiences in his friends' rooms full of books, and at the public library, where he got ideas for songs from newspapers on microfilm, from the 1860's to early 1900's. He said he just wanted to figure out how they talked.
As he gets older, his tracks haunt the parties and weekends of the elite, and as you get personal glimpses of Archibald Macleish, Johnny Cash, Peter, Paul and Mary and others, it kind of makes you not want to be famous. Not that Dylan would say that, because he is certainly glad he made it. He mentions his house in the Hamptons and his sailboat and his meetings with Bono. His ego sort of saps his life and his book, though.
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November 16, 2005
running out of gas
this morning when i got into my car, i noticed it was the third day in a row i drove around on empty. i thought, "i drive a volvo, i can go another day."
and then i thought, "gosh, i hope i can go another day, because i don't think i have my wallet or my cell phone.." and i laughed quite flippantly to myself as i left my house in st. elmo. and then about half way up the mountain, my car started shaking.
after sweet communion with the Lord this morning, i started to pray again. my car shook all the way to the gas station at the top of the mountain, and then it broke down beside the pump. then i noticed there were plastic bags over the nozzles on that particular pump, and i reminded myself that i had no cell phone or wallet in the front pocket of my backpack, where they always are.
then i found my nearly dead cell phone in my car door, and tried to call some friends who might be able to meet me and bail me out financially. gosh, embarassing. i couldn't get anyone. then i looked through the main pocket of my backpack and found my wallet, too. hmm... i tried to re-start my car and it died about 3 times.
so i went inside and told the woman at the counter: my car died in front of a pump that doesn't work. and very cheerfully she offered to push it to a working pump. another lady inside the station, a customer, said with a smile, "I was pushing tractors and trucks at my house yesterday.. i can be a man in this situation." then a man in the parking lot helped out too.
thinking about it as i drove up to the college, i realized that if my car had started after i pulled up to the first pump, and if i had made it to another pump, i would never have known that God provided up to the last drop of gas to see me to the gas station. that was a cool answer to prayer. one of those, 'ok i hope i'm not being superstitious here.'
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November 14, 2005
the end of pessimism
i'm sorry my blog has to be about conscience matters again, but for today, i just want to get these words down somewhere.
often in my life i have felt the need to put down pessimism. the spirit of pride, fear, and negativity always seem to connote the world, but as i've met Christians who subtly endorse these frames of mind, i have reduced the significance of my conscience toward these things. the need for perpetual joy became debatable and even threatening as a Christian goal, because i've seen many Christians who seem to be unable to operate this way. and yet... and yet.
today i picked up a book on the display at the library, written by Joel Beeke, of Westminster Seminary (Philadelphia). The book is called "Overcoming the World" and one chapter addresses Christian ministers' coping with criticism.
He writes the following, and for today, it seems to be on-target to me.
"A pessimistic attitude in a minister is no better than a proud one, for pride is usually at the root of pessimism. Ministers become pessimistic when they think they deserve better treatment than they're getting. At times they might be right, but they may also be failing to exercise self-denial as their Master did, who suffered far worse. . . Resentment and criticism are the maidservants of pessimism. A complaining spirit produces negativism, depression, bitterness, and disillusionment in the ministry. It also promotes smugness and blindness to one's own condition. Bitter ministers often don't see their unforgiving spirit, their habit of backbiting or their tendency to judge others and magnify their deficiencies. (mt. 7:3-5).
Posted by tacyjane at 03:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 11, 2005
i do love pranks
http://www.prangstgrup.com/index_1000.html
i am not doing a url. it's a secret why not. cut and paste the link for some fun weekend pranks. this will make you wish that you were a cooler person, guaranteed.
Posted by tacyjane at 02:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 09, 2005
RUDY! RUDY!
I want to watch that movie again. How sad, how sad I am that Rudy Schmidt died. At the end of last week, it was a shock to everyone that he was very sick, then it was surprising to find out that he had leukemia. It was all sudden.
I didn't know him very well, but when Heidi told me they weren't sure he would make it through the night on Friday I felt like weeping. Today in chapel Dr. Barker made the announcement that he died at 9am, and I would not have known except that Libba told me when I walked in. Barker made a few comments about his character, and that Rudy used to know everyone at Covenant by name, and he concluded by saying in a choked up voice: "I'm not really sure what to say about him, but he may have been the finest man I have ever known."
Why is death knocking so loudly this month?
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November 06, 2005
north of the tennessee
last week at church my sunday school teacher Al preached from the pulpit. he gave his testimony and confessed two-sided marital unfaithfulness being a part of his history with his wife. today he brought it up in sunday school, in reference to teaching on Ephesians. Al said that when we are in darkness, we think that there's something to it. But when a match is lit in a dark room, we realize that darkness is merely an absence of light, and there is no light, there is nothing there.
he brought up a few types of darkness. we studied a passage that referenced "pornea," the greek word for sexual immorality, and idolatry. Al said he hits all of us when Paul brings up idolatry. since idols are darkness, they are nothing. they want to suck me into them and make me nothing too.
here's my problem: i don't know how i could live in the light, because i feel like so few people are there, completely known in the sun's exposure. i would feel foolish to go there all alone. the things i would thus say, in the light, and the things i would thus do, if i had no idolatry at all.... these things would be bizarre at best, fanatical at worst to the onlooker.
i like it that i have become an onlooker to the zealous believer, because i am so thankful that God did not call me to be weird. but in the same way that i have feared the calling to be weak, i have also felt a calling to be weird. i guess because the gospel is foolishness to the world, no matter how well you dress it up. i know i don't have to denigrate myself. but it is a good question, how do you keep your cool and still live in light?
yeah i see you smirking. i'm smirking too. unconfidently.
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November 05, 2005
wendell berry comes in handy
I am posting a recently discovered likeable poem, used for my Literary Criticism paper about reader response. It comes from Wendell Berry's book of poems, highly recommendable, The Timbered Choir.
Berry also came in handy at Global Trends the other day, when we were talking about a philosophical grounds for a Conservationist attitude toward the earth's resources (this is as opposed to developing technology to improve on the damage we've done to the earth). I brought up his book Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community and his idea that if we focus on our own town, fostering familial community, we will be able to share our resources better. It's a very Biblical concept and ideal as well. The problem with conservationism? People don't believe in ideals anymore. I guess all the hippy tree-huggers kinda wierded people out when they started making movies like Fern Gully.
V
How long does it take to make the woods?
As long as it takes to make the world.
The woods is present as the world is, the presence
Of all its past, and of all its time to come.
It is always finished, it is always being made, the act
Of its making forever greater than the act of its destruction.
It is a past of eternity, for its end and beginning
Belong to the end and beginning of all things,
The beginning lost in the end, the end in the beginning.
What is the way to the woods, how do you go there?
By climbing up through the six days’ field,
Kept in all the body’s years, the body’s
Sorrow, weariness, and joy. By passing through
The narrow gate on the far side of that field
Where the pasture grass of the body’s life gives way
To the high, original standing of the trees,
By coming in to the shadow, the shadow
Of the grace of the straight way’s ending,
The shadow of the mercy of light.
Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come in among these trees you must leave behind
The six day’s world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool, alone,
Expecting nothing, remembering nothing,
Into the ease of sight, the brotherhood of eye and leaf.
By Wendell Berry
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November 03, 2005
in love
i am learning that we all want to be in love, because that is when we are most romantic. but i am learning how to be in love with everything, how to be romantic all the time.
i am in love with, for example, inclement weather.
Posted by tacyjane at 03:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
a tesseract of mind
I reread A Wrinkle in Time in the past few days for 20th century Lit. I discovered today in class that apparently I am a bit of a Madeleine L'Engle fanatic. oops. I think it started when I read A Circle of Quiet in Charlottesville, Virginia. After that, I thought I was ordering the next in the Circle series, and instead it turned out to be a book of her quotations. This book boils down her best philosophies and ideas. And then my passion rekindled when I read Two-Part Invention in New York, and picked up Walking on Water this fall. No other writer has inspired me to be a writer as much as Madeleine L'Engle.
A Wrinkle in Time reminded me that although it is very difficult to love someone, and although the mind is very significant, a solitary brain has the capacity to hate, but it does not have the capacity to love. A brain which has been divorced from a body is depicted as the enemy in the story, interestingly. And the only thing that can win a debate with the brain is to do what it cannot do, love. Maybe the impact of the book is childish... that's what some people were arguing. But it's also subtly profound.
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