Ponder Anew

Yesterday, as I was reading a book of poetry outside the library, a friend of mine walked by and asked in jest, "Are you pondering anew what the Almighty can do?" I laughed at his joke and kept on reading. Today, though, as I was reading another book outside and gazing at the grand tree that was providing shade for me I began to really think about that old hymn and verse. This week has been fast paced and rather stressful at times; lots of new faces and names and very little time for rest. But today I sat back and practiced that age old and often forgotten Christian virtue: rest (well...perhaps its not a virtue, but certainly a worthwhile practice). Today I rested and pondered anew what the Almighty can do.

T.S. Eliot

Tonight was the final meeting of my summer book club, and it didn't disappoint. Neither did the words of T.S. Eliot, whose Four Quartets we discussed. I sometimes forget how much I miss discussion of great books and ideas until I am doing it and can't imagine how I did without before. Nevertheless, tonight was harmonious. We discussed everything from Shakespeare to Anglo-Catholicism to Terrence Malick and film, and everything in-between.

However, it seems strange to be commenting on something just as or after it has happened (a subject we discussed tonight), and so I am going to end this post here with a section from the Four Quartets, though it also seems a crime only to read a section.

IV 

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error,
The only home, or else despair
     Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
     To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
     We only live, only suspire
     Consumed by either fire or fire.

~T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

Sufjan and Wasps

Today as I drove about, working my way through the days endless responsibilities, a moment of peace came over me. I was sitting in a parking lot, waiting for my mother to come out to the car, and listening to this song:

Just about a minute into the song a wasp lighted on the window beside my head. Usually this would freak me out a bit (bad run in with a wasp as a child!), but today it didn't. The wasp was beautiful. It seemed almost to know I was listening to a song in which its kind was featured, and it demanded my attention. And yet, it wasn't demanding. It simply danced along and flew away a few moments later. In those few moments I thought of nothing else but the beauty of the music and of the wasp itself, and for those moments I was in paradise.

Also, here is a picture Sufjan and another one of my favorite musicians, St. Vincent (Annie Clark):

This photo just made me happy, so I thought I'd share!

In other news: I am very excited about an Arthurian Literature class I will be taking this fall! It took a little bit of work, but I claimed the last spot! This is beginning to have the look of a great semester.

Summer Movie

Ok, so it isn't your usual summer blockbuster...it's a three and a half hour masterpiece by Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovskiy! I watched it a couple of nights ago and was blown away by both its scale and imagination. At its heart, it is a film about the role of the artist in a time of horrid, senseless violence - a dilemma Tarkovskiy knew all too well growing up under the grotesque oppression of Stalin.

Andrei Rublev may seem a daunting task at three and a half black and white hours, but Tarkovskiy is too skilled a filmmaker to allow the audience room to grumble. This is not to say that the pace is quick (far from it), but rather that Tarkovskiy and cinematographer Vadim Yusov employ so many innovative and unique styles of capturing the images that it is hard not to be engrossed throughout. Many of these shots can clearly be seen to have inspired modern filmmakers such as Peter Jackson and Terrence Malick.

One of the most memorable scenes is a recreation of the crucifixion of Christ in a Russian winter:

Despite a headache, being supremely tired, and misjudging the length of the film by about an hour (oops), I was riveted. What more can I say?

Thanksgiving

**Nota Bene: I had written this poem about a week ago (well...50% of it is Scripture, so I guess I didn't really write it), and didn't think too much of it since. Then, tonight, when discussing Charles Williams' novel War in Heaven, this verse came up repeatedly. Throughout the novel, characters are repeating incantations in order to converse with the supernatural in a demonic sense, but the one pious character uses Psalm 136 almost as an Invocation of the divine, and thus I added to my title a bit.**

Thanksgiving: A Christian Invocation

This body was given me by my mother,

            though it was not hers to give.

O give thanks to the Lord; for He is good:

            because His mercy endureth for ever.

This breath is lent me by the earth,

            though it is not the earth’s to lend.

O give thanks to the Lord; for He is good:

            because His mercy endureth for ever.

These thoughts will be thought by greater intellects,

            though they will not be theirs to think.

O give thanks to the Lord; for He is good:

            because His mercy endureth for ever.

Shark Week!

That's right, folks. Tomorrow begins an all new shark week. Get ready to have your minds blown.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/shark-week/

And on a completely unrelated note, check out Wade Robson being his usual crazy self:

Novelties

Five opening sentences from novels yet to be (or never to be) written:

1. Sarah was crying again, but something was peculiar about these tears: they moved in the reverse fashion, rising from her lap, gathering along her cheek, and inserting themselves into her eyes; everyone was taken aback, but this soon faded as each couple filed their way out of the house backwards and in reverse order of their arriving, and Samuel was left to wonder what on earth that gypsy had slipped into his drink at lunch.

2. The blood was draining quickly, but he had just enough time to drag his near corpse of a body from the dining room to the front door to write a message in his own blood, "Joseph Carpe" but his hand slipped for the last time and rendered the message unreadable.

**Has anyone written a novel where the murderer is known to the reader but not the victim? I'm sure its been done, but for some reason I can't think of by whom at the moment. I think that would be a fun one.**

3. It wouldn't be until years later, in a conversation with Jim Needham on the event, that Jonathan would truly realize the gravity of his mistake in asking Mother Martha if her nonexistent baby was to be a boy or a girl.

4. Charles had always been fond of children, but this was simply too much for even him to handle, he thought as he attempted to forcibly walk out of the walk-in pantry in which he was currently imprisoned.

5. Jack had never given the idea of a twin brother any thought, but now it dominated his mind as the only explanation for this imposter who stood before him in poor dress, and with unmistakably familiar features, who had apparently been responding to the name Jack for weeks, giving the real owner of that name quite a bad reputation for slovenliness.

This is what happens when my job requires me to fold brochures for several hours...