There Is But Little I Can Say…
Personal thoughts and ramblings from the inner world of my mindA Whole New World
This life of being more a home body, starting my own service business (be sure to “like” my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Focus-Cleaning/105433632882176), homeschooling the youngest two, and generally having a lot more time on my hands is nice. I mean if I could find a way to pay for it, it would be awesome. The biggest noted difference is the change from trying to keep parents happy about their brats to keeping folks happy about my cleaning their place. Much easier, I must say. I have enough time that I think there will be a little more regular input here. Stay tuned.
Global Goo Goo
Being unemployed, I have more time to read and to think and to watch the world go by on TV. In my own personal life and at the highest levels of global life (whatever that is) I can see, feel, and get real depressed about the money. To make my life just that much more delightful, one of the many books I am currently working through is Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson which can be summed up in his proposition that whenever we think short term, we screw everything up. Hmmm, I think we are screwing everything up.
It seems like we have run after a lot of misguided or unguided goals in the last fifty years (sorry, we here refers to people on the planet) trying to solve problems without changing what we have been doing to cause the problems. I am not going too green here, but the green problems are only a small slice of the short sighted giddiness that has gotten us in so many issues. And it feels much like we are plodding about now in real goo goo, or caramel, or some such sticky substance. The mucking sound of our feet is particularly noisy in places such as Ireland, Greece, etc., but there is muck in the best of places, even in the U.S. Again, I am not just speaking economically here, but the total package. The whole shebang is stinky.
But what to do? Can’t answer that with any confident or immediate responses. A generations deep lapse in memory has gotten us all in a bad place. We just can’t remember what our parents had already had forgotten to them by their parents. We have lost community in trying to all become one global community. We have lost morals by dismissing everything that is behind the notion of right and wrong. We have the need to return to a place none of us have ever been, the place where we live in a sustainable, humble, real, manner that admits who we are and Who made us.
If there is a possible means of returning and remembering, I think it would have to include leadership from our own nation. Thus I think I can move to post “B.”
Another fork stuck in the road…
I am standing here looking at the future and I have to tell you, the immediate future (the next 20-40 years) is not looking too hot. Long term, Heaven, glory, eternity, looking forward to all that, but in the mean time, I think we are all in for some changes. And I feel I need to think it all out here in cyberspace. I will probably take a bunch of posts to do so, but here goes the beginnings. I will be sending a head’s up to some of you for your responses, but anyone who takes the time to comment will get my attention.
First I should dice up the massive steak so I digest it a little at a time. Changes are coming in at least the following areas, each of which I will blog on separately:
A. Globally – the whole big world can’t keep its current track and not fall over
B. Nationally – our culture has died and at means a lot of things are so that no one seems to want to discuss honestly
C. Educationally – a more specific area from “B” it still has a lot going wrong and I am trying hard to find what is right
D. Personally – I will be doing something for quite some time to come, but what that is has not clarified yet.
INXS
I have come only lately to this band from the past. But despite the loss of their front man, they are still trying to make music. And they are close to the boys in U2, so it is wonderful to hear their new single, Tiny Summer, featuring the voice of Bono. Enjoy it here for free: http://www.inxs.com/Tiny_Summer.html
Where is this ship headed?
I have recently finished reading to my youngest the fifth Narnian chronicle, that of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader in which the end of the world is sought out. A lot of compelling moments throughout the book revolve around the fact that they don’t know exactly where they are going, only that it is east.
That is a great analogy for my life at the moment. Not only have all my attempts for the last three months to find gainful employment been without any real success, at least financially, but I continue to compare my current Anglicanism with the ideas and practices of those further East, those of the Orthodox church. I just am not sure where I am headed, but I am becoming convinced more and more each day that God is leading me somewhere and I await (with an anxious family) where that will be. I do know ultimately that the destination is the end of this world and into the next. Heaven awaits beyond the fog.
Roger Scruton’s “Beauty”
I have just finished reading a great work on Beauty by Roger Scruton. I will certainly have to blog more on it over at my book review site, but here I just wanted to share a quote from near the end that struck me:
Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it did not matter; and we live that way because we have lost the habit of sacrifice and are striving always to avoid it. (p. 194)
Read this book; find what he means by living within sacrifice, and then live there. It is a beautiful place.
Try the Green Ones
Oh boy did I fall off the anti-modernist bandwagon Tuesday evening. Let me explain. I am conflicted about it, but I will share the whole story.
So its Caleb’s 8th Birthday, which for months now has included a camping trip to the lake with Dad. Just the two of us. And he wants to fish. Now fishing and Steve go way back and the whole history is black. In short…
There is my dad and I going out with a Zebco 202 and some worms on a hot afternoon, getting wet, worm-gutty, and really bored.
There there is my scouting troops and their penchant for this “sport” and I did catch some fish, including the one I snagged while practicing casting with an empty hook. I was always better at catching frogs, it seemed.
Anyway, there is no history since I believe the time I was about 16. I am now 46. That is a major pile of years to have fishing lie dormant and then resurrect it for your youngest son’s desire.
We go to the bait store and get a thing of worms. As we come to the register, the good ol boy says, “Try those green ones.”
It seems that “they” feed these worms special stuff that makes them glow bright green when they hit the water. Really. I guess the studies on how this green glow might affect the healthy consumption of said fish after eating such worms is still being done. But my fear of not being able to give my son his vaunted experience overcame every loud voice in my saying, “that aint natural” so I bought the green ones.
They did glow brightly the next morning when my son awoke me at 6:30am to go fishing. Fish did get fatter, and we assume glowed with satisfaction, after we lost all 12 to the lake. But I did catch two small throwbacks and Caleb had one play with him. And I am not sure, but I think he may be done with fishing and I am certainly done with “the green ones.”
Sacraments and Baton Rouge
Working off my previous post, it surprises me how just as I grew discontent with our life in Baltimore (metropolitan, Ref Bpt, out of education, theologically in particular seeking something more consistent with my growing views of the Sacraments) off we headed to Baton Rouge. We literally entered many new worlds almost at once. We settled on a PCA church, despite my woes teaching for them in Baltimore, and I began listening, reading, and discussing various views not only of baptism (which certainly held center stage) but also the whole nature of the worship service, the five solas, etc.
I also entered the world of Louisiana, which brought new revelation to me about the South, about La Festival, and about being an outsider.
Then there was the whole jumping into educational leadership and its various joys, especially in a culture wholly new to me.
And with each step, God seemed to give me the right friends, the right books, the right moments (a new friend handing me Hick’s Norms and Nobility stands out to me clearly) in order to totally rearrange how I viewed my world theologically, educationally, relationally, etc. I could write a whole chapter on music alone. And God seemed pleased to preserve some of the past for me. I still have friends in Baltimore who add to my life. And now that I have moved on from there, I still have friends there as well.
Baton Rouge seems to have been given to my family to convince at least my wife and I of the sacramental nature of life. We are not disembodied spirits (spirits in a material world as Sting would have it). We live here, in some place, with certain people, etc. Thus we became and for now still remain Anglicans.
And God tested and tried that decision by moving to Greenville, NC where there were no Anglicans for miles around. But that is another post another day.
What is going on here? The Reformed Baptist years in retrospect
I continue to be amazed at the journey of life, in particular: mine. And as I go through these things, I think stopping to look back is worth the trouble. I am always surprised out how my reading seems to come along side the turns in my journey as well. Let me see if I can meditate out loud and show what I mean.
I will simply go back to 1990, where, as I came out of college, I was reading M.J. Erickson’s Systematic Theology as I entered the Reformed Baptist world through the back door. That culminated ten years later with a much clearer sense of who I was theologically, and the understanding that I was not an RB. They seemed to treat children much differently than adult unbelievers and this was at the heart of my dismay, as it seemed to be centered on disclarity with the sacraments.
This set me up for a move to Baton Rouge and the possible entrance into Presbyterianism. Again, reading was instrumental here. More later, I gotta run for now.
Can Lame Ducks Fly?
Back in the day, when the notions of Bears and Bulls were being configured in the London Stock market of Exchange Alley (which is where the London Stock market was until 1773), a third group of “investors” was coined, those who were “ducks.” They were lame because they waddled out of the Alley. They had nothing left in the game, were broke, and could no longer trade as they had no assets. Today we apply the term “lame duck” to those in politics or places of power a lot more than to investors.
We also use the “duck” term in several other interesting ways. Someone can be a “dead duck,” a “sitting duck” and still over in merry old England things can even be said to be “ducky,” which is a good thing unless the term is used sarcastically. Why the fascination with ducks? These meditations come from reading The Phrase Finder’s research on this term of “lame duck” online. They led me to the following personal considerations.
What causes a leader to become a lame duck? One of two scenarios would seem to feed the same cause: either coming to the end of a term or retiring. I have had several occasions to “enjoy” being a lame duck in my life, including the current moment. Once someone with decision making power loses the authority of “continuation” (which is the compelling power that comes when one is deciding things that determine the future of an organization of which the decision maker will be continuing to lead) he is left to finish the term of his leadership with nothing more than the desire to not upset the applecart. If his whole leadership style has simulated such a desire (to not upset anything) then there really should not be a lame duck scenario. But if part of a strong leader is the desire to press upward and forward, then he suddenly finds that he is without any of the fuel that has kept him plugging away day after day for however long he has been in leadership once the “plug” has been pulled, whether by himself or others. He begins to waddle.
I am a grumpy lame duck. The only thing keeping the duck from flying away is the cage of time which states he must endure a few more weeks of setting things up for someone else to lead before he can fly to his next migratory pond.
Moving out to the country…
Life is a journey, and mine keeps twisting in new ways all the time. The family moved to Greensboro in July and took up residence in a 1Ksqft 3 bedroom apartment. Close quarters. Judy finds on Craigslist a 2300 sqft house out in Reidsville for less money than we were paying at the aptmt. So we have enjoyed the following moves, population wise:
Steve grew up in Clay Center, KS (pop. 5K), then moved to KC, KS during HS (pop. 1.5million).
Judy grew up in Baltimore, MD (pop. 2.5 million).
We met in Greenville, SC (pop. 600K).
We moved back to Baltimore, MD.
We then moved to Baton Rouge, LA (pop. [pre-Katrina] 600K)
We then moved to Greenville, NC (pop. 60K) Wow!, esp. for Judy.
We then moved to Greensboro, NC (what is with all the Green?), (pop. 225K)
And now we have moved to Reidsville, NC (pop. 15K). Judy gulps very big.
Not sure what all that means, but of interest to me so now its in your head.
Steve grew up in Clay Center, KS (pop. 5K), then moved to KC, KS during HS (pop. 1.5million).
Judy grew up in Baltimore, MD (pop. 2.5 million).
We met in Greenville, SC (pop. 600K).
We moved back to Baltimore, MD.
We then moved to Baton Rouge, LA (pop. [pre-Katrina] 600K)
We then moved to Greenville, NC (pop. 60K) Wow!, esp. for Judy.
We then moved to Greensboro, NC (what is with all the Green?), (pop. 225K)
And now we have moved to Reidsville, NC (pop. 15K). Judy gulps very big.
If only someone was still reading Russell Kirk
All I can say is, “Wow.”
6 Canons that define conservatism from Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind”
1. “Belief that a divine intent rules society as well as conscience, forging an eternal chain of right and duty which links great and obscure, living and dead. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems.
2. “Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of traditional life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and equalitarianism and utilitarian aims of most radical systems.
3. “Conviction that the only true equality is moral equality, that all attempts to extend equality to economics and politics, if enforced by positive legislation, lead to despair, and that civilized society requires order and classes.
4. “Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic leveling is not economic progress.
5. “Faith in what conservatives call “prescription”—the accumulation of “traditions and sound prejudice,” i.e., common sense.
6. ”Recognition that change and reform are not the same things, and that “innovation is a devouring conflagration more often than it is a torch of progress.”
How will this be possible when its longer?
My second son, Josh, has been away for a week serving the Church in the needy nation of Haiti. I am proud of his desire and willingness to go, and this for a second time (he went to Mexico City two years ago), but this absence of his has been particularly thought provoking for me. I would suppose that because the World Cup is underway, and I know he is missing some or all of it, and because I don’t have a job right now, I get to think about things more, and because I believe he is in a more fragile or even perhaps dangerous situation than he was in MC, I have worried about and missed him more this time than last. But in particular, the title of this blog post has run through my mind many times. James is turning 17 in a month or so. Josh will be 16 later this year. They will be gone for a lot longer than a week soon; for life. What will I do then?
Don’t get me wrong; I love to see them growing up and I hope my main motive in parenting them as I do has been for them to leave and be strong godly men. But I will miss them. They drive me crazy, cause they are like me, and they are young, and that is the way it is supposed to be. But I can talk with them now; then it will be only during visits. Their growing up is tough on this old man. But then…there is the other side of the river.
Upon the Occasion of My Parent’s 50th Anniversary
Steve Elliott, June 8, 2010
Wendell Berry has written that we don’t stay married for the same reasons that we get married. The rush of new romance is not sufficient to carry the years. It is this fallacy that results in so many broken marriages in our day. At the heart of marriage is fidelity to a promise. It transcends simplicity by being so simple. I have said that I would love you, no matter what, and on the basis of that promise stands everything. As we live a world that takes less and less stock in the word, written, spoken, or implied, we live in an age where marriage is less adored, less revered, less sincere. That is why it is my great honor to stand here this evening and simply honor the honored word.
On June 8, 1960, just a little over five years before I was born, Bill and Dorothy Elliott said a very short promise that has taken them so very much time and adventure. That promise was beyond what we would call affection, or a self serving “contract” but became a picture of the Creator’s promise to His wayward creatures in the garden. The Elliott’s “I do” reflected that great promise of Genesis 3, when God promised to do for Adam and Eve what they could not do for themselves. The promise was one of action. They might very well tell you that when they married they may or may not have been true believers in the Lord Jesus at that point. But I can tell you that their marriage has reflected all the beauty of God’s grace since. I grew up in the midst of that marriage, experiencing with them many of the times of plenty and want, warmth and coldness, joy and pain.
But the beauty of time is that it often is a grace, leaving us with the memories of all that God has done, all the grace, all the good times, while the labor and pain simply fades into the background, providing the depth of hue and tone that makes the overall picture a work of our great Master. We are here this evening to admire the portrait, now much closer to completion than when it was begun, but still much to be added. Those remaining details are every bit as exciting as the beginning brush strokes were.
Unlike the painting found in some sterile gallery, this masterpiece is a part of our very lives. We know so much more about this work of art than most pieces in a gallery. Perhaps the greatest thought we can have this evening is that the same Master who has been working so faithfully with this couple for 50 years is at work on each of our own lives as well. This grand mosaic that can include so many marriages here tonight and throughout his Kingdom is proper point of emphasis even as we congratulate Bill and Dorothy this evening. As I stated earlier, I have grown up in the midst of this marriage, and I know that the best I can say this evening in honoring them and this major moment in their lives is that God is faithful, and it is by His grace alone that they have come to this point, and shall go forward looking for that great day when we all shall be joined together at the Marriage feast of the Lamb of God. To that great God be all honor and glory and blessing, for this marriage and for our very lives. Amen.
A Night of Light
I attended last night (by myself, Judy stayed home with the kids) a concert of the East Carolina University Choral Scholars. I found out about it because one of the participant’s wife works for me. He conducted a good deal of the works, all of which were older sacred works. It was just delightful. Sublime. Here is my brief review of the program:
A. Alleluia, Randall Thompson – what an awesome start to this program. One word, repeated, but done in a manner that lifted me up to the ceiling. And that is saying something, because this concert was in the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, downtown Greenville, NC, which has two awesome aspects for a night like this: A) it has a great sounding space, with cathedral ceilings, and B) they have the best organ not just in town, but in Eastern NC. And the dude could play it!
B. Missa Brevia, Antonio Lotti – gotta get this. Live was great, a recording would be wonderful for the car.
C. O How Amiable, Ralph Vaughan Williams – now RVW rocks, but this was not the best example of such. Good, but probably the low point of the program for me. I will have to admit that the ending portion, which is a slowed down and loud gunning version of “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” made me get back on board with it.
Those first three were conducted by Martha Chapman. The rest were conducted by my acquaintance, Aaron Rice. Great job, Aaron.
D. Jubilate Deo, Benjamin Britten. How can you miss with your text being Ps. 100. Good stuff.
E. Pange Lingua, Anton Bruckner, text by Thomas Acquinas – Wow. Blew me out the back wall. Really powerful. I don’t know Latin, so having the English helped, but the music soared regardless. Ought to pick this one up.
F. When David Heard, Thomas Tomkins – this is the text from when David heard Absalom was slain and I wanted to hear it from the moment that I saw it in the program, because I wanted to hear how the composer would deal with the “My son, my son, Absalom my son” section. It was worth the wait. Not the campy waa-wah that I was semi-expecting, but perhaps that is because Tomkins was writing in the 16th century and thus had a different base to write from. It was very deep, very compelling.
G. I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me, Sir C. Hubert H. Parry – okay, you know how the last fling at the fireworks is the grande finale – this was thus. The organ alone had me ready for Mars. Conflict and resolution in full orb here. I need to get this in recorded form.
Just really was refreshed, uplifted, and reminded again and again how much I yearn to see something like this pushed down into a great high school choral program. I want to hear this kind of music every day, or at least weekly!
