Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods is my beloved

What do I really want?  I was asked this by a dear friend recently -- the topic of our conversations is often what we should be doing with our lives.  As single women, particularly single women trying to conform themselves to the Biblical worldview, the world is a precarious place for us.  Torn between longing for home and family and trying to best use our gifts for the glory of God, between the demands of covenant headship and those of reality, trying to be pure, winsome, innocent, and holy while remaining relevant to the people and the culture around us, continually wondering about our calling and our singlehood -- it's tough.  Should we stay at home, hoping someone will come along and honing our homemaking skills to an edge that will only embarrass any future daughters-in-law?  Should we venture out into the world, attempting to do some good there while remaining unscathed by its materialism and hedonism?  And if our call is truely to life-long singleness, how do we respect the authority structure God has ordained while serving the kingdom of God?  Are there certain realms that are barred to us because we are women (other than those expressly prohibited in the Bible)?  Specifically, is there a place for me in science, perhaps even an influential position, or should I not even look for such?

I write this as I've just signed the offer letter for a position in a Ph.D. program.  The decision to go to graduate school is something I have been struggling with for years now.  To be blunt, grad school is Plan B for me.  I go into this knowing how cold a comfort the attainment of worldly ambitions is and vastly preferring husband and home to Ph.D. and lab bench.  This isn't the life I wanted, but I can't deny God's obvious prompting in this area.  I see a need that can only be filled by someone whose true understanding of science's purpose and power liberates them from the small-minded thinking that dominates modern science, liberates them to find God in His creation and to puzzle out His mysteries.  He is the place where all things meet.

I wrote this poem five years ago for my poetry class.  The assignment was to write about 9/11 (how cliché).  I now post it with minimal editing (and no apologies, although the writing could be much better).

The View from Jerusalem

Tonight silence devours the city,
the bullets are strange and flightless;
I imagine the scent of concrete dust and charred
flesh drifting in across oceans and nations
from the rumble and ruin of Babel now conquered.

But it is my own flesh, my own ragged rot I smell,
the ugly void where my eyes once reigned --
more grotesque than the gap in any skyline.

And I imagine a continent of candlelight, vast starfields of vigil,
and people who are sleepless for the first time from terror.

The market is quiet now.  The odor of blood fades.
Soon there will be only rusty stains
to show where Jerusalem
scraped the guts of another suicide from the wall.

But how can this compare
with the slice of jet wings through glass
like paper on skin?

I signed up for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's (ISI) Reader's Club a few weeks ago, and among the books I received was one intriguingly titled A Consumer's Guide to the Apocalypse:  Why there is no cultural war in America and why we will perish nonetheless by an Eduardo Velasquez.  ISI is a bastion of conservative intellectualism -- or, as they like to put it, "old-fashioned liberalism" -- as well as being primarily Catholic in its authorship.  They have many, many interesting books and publications, and I finally broke down and joined.

Knowing ISI's doctrinal bias has kept me on the lookout for anything distinctly Catholic that might affect the analysis, although I am of the mind that Catholics can be just as apt as Protestants with regard to cultural criticism.  Reading A Consumer's Guide to the Apocalypse assured me that I was right to be wary on this account.  

The book's premise is that the "apocalyptic angst" seen in popular culture and the seeming war between fundamentalist religion and dogmatic science are the result of the particularly incoherent brand of irrationality stemming from a "tenacious, if sometimes unacknowledged, commitment to the basic tenets of the Enlightenment."  Which thesis didn't sound particularly new to my ears, though worth exploring, but it was the author's elaboration on this that was truely surprising.

In the book's introduction, Velasquez asserts that "Enlightenment Protestantism severs the connection between reason and the soul" via its emphasis on "access to a personal God through faith alone."  He sees the Reformation as having "razed the meeting place for reason and faith" and suggests (subtly) a return to Catholic objectivity in order to reconcile religion and rationality.  Essentially, he implies that it is the Protestant Reformation that has caused all the trouble, not man's unwonted pride in his ability to reason.

Although I agree that the "subjectivity" of faith (I speak as a man) can lead to the errors Velasquez points out, Protestantism -- or the Bible, for that matter -- doesn't preach that we can only know and access God via our subjective experience.  Romans 1 says that God is objectively known and seen in creation, so that all mankind is without excuse.  "I believe" is an assent of the mind as well as the heart.  

The true error is putting God at odds with man's reason simply because He cannot be explained by it.  Our inability to "prove" God or reason to God is  merely evidence of the limits of reason rather than an acknowledgment of the irrationality of belief.  When the Enlightenment gave rationality preeminence as a worldview, some Christians (notably Descartes) felt impelled to recast their faith in that framework, to use reason to access and define God.  Unable to do so satisfactorily, their only retreat was to the subjective experience of faith.  The either-or fallacy that God must be able to be reached by reason or is irrational, not the implications of sola fide, is the root of much of modern irrationality, both in the church and out.

Although God cannot be conscribed within the circle of rationality, He is nevertheless the God of reason, and reason can certainly be used for His glory and for the good of His kingdom.  But, we should beware of trying to bring He whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts down to our level.  As Van Til has said:  "It is Christ as God who speaks in the Bible.  Therefore the Bible does not appeal to human reason as ultimate in order to justify what it says.  It comes to the human being with absolute authority.  Its claim is that human reason must itself be taken in the sense in which Scripture takes it, namely, as created by God and as therefore properly subject to the authority of God."

I showed this video to my students today.  God's creation never ceases to amaze and awe me.  I don't know how anyone can study cellular biology and think that kind of complexity could have evolved from some amino acids floating around.  
The longer version explains what's going on (but not in layman's terms).

Following all the election-year news has me moodily contemplating the future of this country, a response that I'm sure is not unique.  In what is a terrible but seemingly inevitable cycle in history, free governments succumb to tyranny eventually, and I know the U.S. is headed that direction -- the only thing I'm not certain of is how long it will take to get there.  But I'm prepared to move to Korea or New Zealand, if need be.

People in the news have been crowing over the fact that the major candidates are so "moderate."  That's unsettling to me, rather than being reassuring.  As the saying goes, it's the difference between driving off a cliff at 60 mph versus 90 mph.  The problem with these candidates is not their positions on the issues, but the fact that some of these things are issues to begin with.  They simply do not have the right idea about what the role of government is in the first place.  The government is to keep us from infringing upon the freedoms of our fellow citizens and vice versa, and to prevent foreign countries from doing the same.  Its job is not to enforce morality (outside of doing the above), mandate schooling, or provide health care.  *unmasks*  Yes, I am the dreaded libertarian. :)  Insofar as people rely on the government to do things for them, there will be a commensurate loss of freedoms.  The more we move toward socialism, the more we create a helpless citizenry -- slowly, irrevocably breeding a populace that is either too stupid or too lazy to do anything about their government, thus giving those with initiative or intelligence the power to rule over them.  Our government doesn't need a BandAid -- it needs open-heart surgery.  But nobody seems to realize that.

For once, a happy anniversary.

My year is marked with personal holidays full of my own private grief -- there are many things to regret, many things that make my heart beat stiffly, the muscle crazed with scars.  One such day is fast approaching, and it was, quite possibly, the bitterest day of my life, but by God's grace it was preceded by some of the sweetest.  Three years ago, someone very dear to me told me that if I was to call myself a Christian, then Christ needed to be the center of my existence.  I knew he spoke the truth, and there was no doubt in me when I flung myself at the feet of my Savior and said, "I believe."  And it was like walking out of a windowless room into the noonday summer sun.  

These  three years have been the hardest of my life.  Living conscienciously is always harder than living blinded by self-deceit, pride, and selfishness.  Too, it is difficult to face the truth about my character, the truth about my actions, and especially the truth about my motives.  Sometimes, I think I shouldn't dare to breathe lest I transgress even in that.  I am too often dragged between the extremes of being sensitive to sin to the point of morbidity and being almost callous toward it.  No one said that the pursuit of holiness would be easy, but I had no idea it would be this war that demands constant vigilance.  I guess I just hadn't read my Bible closely enough.

     Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.  
    In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the  mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on the earth -- in Him.  In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
    In Him you also trusted, after you heard with word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

We're a little behind . . .

Playing with bubbles.


A student of mine makes an ingenious model of the atom out of bangle bracelets.


The aftermath of winter reorganization fury.

There was an ad yesterday on the "My LJ" page -- it's one that I've seen before, although advertised on sites more obscure to the typical American.  The ad features a painting of Jesus Christ that looks to be from the Byzantine era by the elongated features and the text, "Jesus Didn't Exist?"  Clicking on the add will bring one to a page touting a documentary called "The God Who Wasn't There" (the address is, ironically, thegodmovie.com).  I managed to watch the trailer without exploding with anger, but that's saying something about my self-control, not about the inoffensiveness of the film.  After I had calmed down, it was obvious to me that the claims the movie made weren't serious threats to Christianity, and the premise was just a vehicle for a lot of yellow journalism aimed at making fundamentalist Christians out to be dangerous wackos willing even to kill for a god who doesn't exist.  

The tack they're taking says something profound about Christianity.  Rather than simply disputing the godhead of Jesus, they're aiming to prove that He didn't even exist, indicating how much they fear the truth of Christianity.  God or not, His very existence is a threat to them.  No other religion has been attacked in this manner.  You don't find atheists trying to assert that Mohammad or Buddha didn't exist.  Granted, Islam and Buddhism are minority beliefs in this country.  Perhaps this line of argument is only taken up to show the seeming foolishness of Christians, but I find it simply additional evidence of how offensive the gospel is to the world.

I love used book sales.  I think if they were more frequent around here, I would probably out on the street right now, living out of my bookcases and posting to LiveJournal on my cell phone. :)  Anyway, I spent $55 today and came away with four boxes of books (good thing the back seat was empty!).  Among the treasures jubilantly carried home were:

The 54-volume Britannica Great Books collection (from Homer to Freud with a syntopical index) -- for $27!
The Joy of Mathematics by Theoni Pappas -- a book that has been on my Amazon wishlist.
Thinking in C++ and Learning Perl -- as I'm determined to learn another programming language.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Last Battle -- both in the 1970 Collier Edition (the one I grew up with).
Various cookbooks, including Food & Wine 2000 -- recipes from the magazine of that name.
A hand-bound book in Japanese on kimono design.
Yet another book in Japanese and English on The American Way of Housekeeping -- published in 1948, so should be an interesting look at that period in, well, the history of housekeeping. :)  Not to mention the obvious cultural differences.
A book on the history of astronomy as seen in the history of the telescope.
Creation and the Modern Christian by Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research.

I think I may have to go back on Monday for their 2-for-1 sale. :)

Books, yes, let's see . . .

Last year I read Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, and I would recommend it to anyone.  It's a short exposition of the epistemology of media and a fascinating look at the inherent restrictions of the television medium in particular.  You'll never watch T.V. (or use the internet or even read a book) in the same way again.

A book I began last year and am still reading (I get easily distracted, despite the charms of the book) is Intellectuals by Paul Johnson, who is a conservative historian.  During the Enlightenment, intellectuals prevailed over the church as the dominant social and ethical force and were very vocal about the church's shortcomings.  Johnson posits that it is now time to evaluate how intellectuals have done as the stewards of humanity and subject them to the same critical appraisal they leveled against the church three hundred years ago.   It's amazing how antithetical the lives of these people were from the ideas they championed.  But, that shouldn't be surprising -- it's something that tends to happen whenever man makes himself god.  Again, highly recommended.

I received The Preciousness of Time by Jonathan Edwards for Christmas from my mom.  It's a short read, but its value is inversely proportional to its length.  I was really convicted that my procrastination is a sin and that I should be much more careful in how I use the time God has given me.

I also received a book called What is Mathematics? which attempts to give an overview of the fundamental theories and methods in all the major mathematical fields.  I've only read a little of the first chapter so far, but with an endorsement from Einstein on the cover, it has to be good (the first edition was published in 1941).  It covers such topics as number theory, calculus, projective geometry and topology.

A book I picked up to give to a friend and ended up reading it myself first is Danielle Crittenden's What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us.  She looks at the shocking effects of feminism among the daughters of the first feminists and makes a very compelling (and completely secular!) argument against traditional feminist ideals.  

Last of all is a book that I can only recommend with severe caveats.  This is I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe.  His pitch-perfect depiction of the modern college scene is full of crude language and some "adult" situations, but what I found compelling about it is his consummate portrayal of a young woman's moral demise.  I found most of the objectionable elements necessary for the verisimilitude of the story -- none of them struck me as being entirely gratuitous.  If anyone else has read this, I'd be interested in comparing thoughts.  I found Charlotte's story to be heartbreakingly true to life.

We decided to have a little fun with our three feet of snow this year by blowing it up with dry ice bombs.  However, this bomb didn't quite make it to the giant snowball it was intended for . . .

About once in every six months, in my late-Friday-night ramblings on the internet, I (to my detriment?) wander about the blogs of people I used to know of when I was living in Moscow.  It's truely amazing how many people I know about without them having any inkling that I exist.  Anyway, in a few of these blogs I find people moving quietly away from reformed orthodoxy -- as one put it, "another petal on my John Calvin flower wilted."  While that statement is in itself surprising, it is the reason why that is even more baffling.  In that community's pursuit of beauty, goodness, and truth, they have been overly swayed by beauty and seem to have forgotten about truth.  They are worshiping beauty in the Christian God instead of worshiping God alone.  Sheldon Vanauken writes of being enamored of the "Anglo-Catholic approach to the faith:  the beauty, the mystery, the holiness.  A less workaday sort of Christianity. "  It is this very quest for "a less workaday sort of Christianity" that has lead them to devote themselves to liturgy and tradition, so-called high culture, living "a life less petty" -- this is what consumes their time and their thoughts.  I would not blame them for this if I did not know that so much more is required of us as Christians with very little time on this earth to carry out the work of Christ.

It is not surprising to find them engrossed in the trappings.  Their postmillennialism is nothing if not focused on this temporal world.  But it is odd to find them jettisoning the most beautiful elements of the gospel for outward glory.  For what is more incomparably lovely than the unconditional, irresistible grace of God in the light of our utter helplessness?  In searching for assurance in their bloated idea of covenant, they have made the matchless blood of Christ vapid and impotent, shackling it to man's whim.

Vanauken admits that he himself was "drawn more by the beauty than the holiness . . . .There may be danger in the love of beauty, though it seems treason to say it.  Perhaps it can be a snare."  This from a man who eventually succumbed to the snare, converting to Catholicism late in life.

Our week in pictures . . .

Kilimanjaro (actually Rattlesnake Mountain) under snowfall.

A few months ago, a new product was added to the fairly limited selection of the vending machine in the building where I work.  It was a small black bottle emblazoned with "Extreme Energy 5 Hour Shot" in livid yellow.  "Works Blazing Fast! No Crashing! Zero Sugar!" it proclaimed.  I was intrigued. 

There has been an unfortunate historical connection between scientists and drug use, the most notable of which (or at least the most public) being Richard Feynman's dabbling in hallucinogens.  I guess that's why they call it experimental drug use.  It's usually approached in a very analytical manner, out of a curious investigation of the effects of the drug on the human body, rather than for the "high." 

Such an analytical approach was certainly in play today as my co-worker and I downed one of these energy shots each, right before our weekly meeting with our boss.   Prior to doing so, we thoroughly investigated (via Wikipedia) the possible dangers of consuming 2200% of the daily recommended value of vitamin B6, 8333% of vitamin B12, and 220 mg of caffeine all in one sitting.  The most interesting result was that an overdose of B6 can result in the temporary deadening of some nerve endings, simulating the loss of proprioception.  This, of course, only served to pique our curiosity even further. 

It happens that we were disappointed by the absence of the dramatic effects promised by the vivid packaging.  The  taste of  the foul herb-saturated, vitamin-glutted liquid was sadly the most interesting thing about the whole experience.  The brew had practically no effect on my co-worker, while I suffered from a niacin flush, headache, numbness, and swifter heartbeat -- but, alas, no obvious increase in energy.

As I sit here, typing with still benumbed fingers, waiting for my head to stop throbbing, let me give you a piece of advice -- don't do vitamins.  Just say no.

I sleep, but my heart waketh.                   Song of Solomon 5:2

Paradoxes abound in Christian experience, and here is one -- the spouse was asleep, and yet she was awake.  He can only read the believer's riddle who has ploughed with the heifer of his experience.  The two points in this evening's text are -- a mournful sleepiness and a hopeful wakefulness.  I sleep.  Through sin that dwelleth in us we may become lax in holy duties, slothful in religious exercises, dull in spiritual joys, and altogether supine and careless.  This is a shameful state for one in whom the quickening spirit dwells; and it is dangerous to the highest degree.  Even wise virgins sometimes slumber, but it is high time for all to shake off the bands of sloth.  It is to be feared that many believers lose their strength as Samson lost his locks, while sleeping on the lap of carnal security.  With a perishing world around us, to sleep is cruel; with eternity so near at hand, it is madness.  Yet we are none of us so much awake as we should be; a few thunder-claps would do us all good, and it may be, unless we soon bestir ourselves, we shall have them in the form of war, or pestilence, or personal bereavements and losses.  O that we may leave forever the couch of fleshly ease, and go forth with flaming torches to meet the coming Bridegroom!  My heart waketh.  This is a happy sign.  Life is not extinct, though sadly smothered.  When our renewed heart struggles against our natural heaviness, we should be grateful to sovereign grace for keeping a little vitality within the body of this death.  Jesus will hear our hearts, will help our hearts, will visit our hearts; for the voice of the wakeful heart is really the voice of the Beloved, saying, "Open to me."  Holy zeal will surely unbar the door.

"Oh lovely attitude!  He stands
With melting heart and laden hands;
My soul forsakes her every sin;
And lets the heavenly stranger in."

-- C.H. Spurgeon

In one of those quintessential Wikipedia moments, I went from Nicholas of Cusa to Musica Universalis to this.  Some guy took the orbital periods of the planets and divided by two until he got a to a frequency that could be heard, and then composed music with those tones.  I've been thinking a lot lately about natural periodicities and their relationship to music, so coming across this really made my day.

[edit] In other music-related news, my favorite tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, died today. *sniff*  His "Nessun Dorma" always sends shivers through me.

[edit] [edit]  Madeleine L'Engle is dead, too.  As I recall, she mentioned the music of the spheres in "A Wind in the Door" . . .  An odd connection.

Shamelessly stolen from patrick___. . .

Bold the things that are true about you:

Bought everyone in the pub a drink.
Swam with wild dolphins.
Climbed a mountain.  A mountainish sort of hill.

My sentiments exactly.  And on a similar note, this is hilarious.

So, I was at Barnes & Noble, thinking I would order my $6.95 copy of "The Road to Reality." I didn't figure they would have it in stock, being a more esoteric item, but not only did they have five copies of it, its price had suddenly risen to $25! My theory is that not only did Patrick's post cause a run on Barnes & Noble for Penrose's book, but they decided that carrying it was so lucrative that they might as well buy half a dozen copies of the more expensive edition.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I don't even need to rant about this one. It speaks for itself. Go to www.christkirk.com and click on "Looking to move to Moscow?" Priceless.